Weekend Box Office: Who, Didn’t See This Coming?

No, the jokes about commas aren’t done yet.

This uneventful weekend at the box office was extremely predictable. Did anyone really expect ‘I, Frankenstein‘ to conjure up good revenue? No. The $8.2 million sixth-place debut is exactly what we all saw coming. Lionsgate will surely eat most of the movie’s $65 million production budget.

First place went to last week’s wildly successful ‘Ride Along‘. Although it slipped 49% in attendance, the movie added another $21.1 million to its haul, giving it a ten-day total of $75.4 million. That’s amazing for a small $25 million comedy.

Second and third places also remained the same. ‘Lone Survivor‘ earned another $12.6 million. The film has pulled in $93.6 million domestically and will cross the $100 million mark by this time next week. ‘The Nut Job‘ also held over very well, slipping only 36% and grossing $12.3 million. While this is nowhere near the success of the year’s more popular animated flicks, the ten-day $40 million total must be great news for Open Road Films, as they’ve already greenlit a sequel.

Frozen‘ closed out its ninth wide weekend with $9 million, little more than $3 million behind week-old ‘Nut Job’. Domestically, the animated musical is up to $347.8 million. Internationally, it’s up to $462.5 million. With $810.3 million worldwide and a few more markets to go, it’s still possible for the film to join the Billion Dollar Club.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit‘, however, will never make it that far. The reboot grossed $8.8 million in its second weekend, bringing its ten-day total up to $30.1 million. Luckily for us fans of franchise, it’s playing better overseas. Having earned $46.5 million with several big markets still to break into, here’s hoping that the movie makes enough to convince Paramount to further the series. If the studio will grant a ‘Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters‘ sequel based on international numbers, maybe there’s hope for ‘Jack Ryan’.

Vanessa Hudgens’ ‘Gimme Shelter‘ failed to make much noise. From 385 screens, the drama only earned $721,000 – a per-screen average of $1,873. Weekend estimates for ‘Knights of Badassdom‘ have yet to be announced.

Top 10:

1. ‘Ride Along’ (Universal) – $21,162,000

2. ‘Lone Survivor’ (Universal) – $12,601,000

3. ‘The Nut Job’ (Open Road) – $12,316,000

4. ‘Frozen’ (Buena Vista) – $9,035,000

5. ‘Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit’ (Paramount) – $8,800,000

6. ‘I, Frankenstein’ (Lionsgate) – $8,275,000

7. ‘American Hustle’ (Sony) – $7,100,000

8. ‘August: Osage County’ (Weinstein) – $5,041,000

9. ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ (Paramount) – $5,000,000

10. ‘Devil’s Due’ (Fox) – $2,750,000

6 comments

  1. Shame about JACK RYAN, as it’s the best thing playing right now (among the January releases, that is). I don’t know what Aaron Eckhart was thinking signing up for that Frankenstein film, other than a paycheck. He’s probably managed to extinguish any goodwill that THANK YOU FOR SMOKING and THE DARK KNIGHT built for his career.

    • Lord Bowler

      I agree in regards to Eckhart. He doesn’t seem to be a good fit for I, Frankenstein.

      I thought I, Frankenstein was based on the Dean Koontz novel series, but apparently not.

      I like Eckhart, even the often bashed films “The Core” and “Paycheck”. I really enjoyed him in “Thank You For Smoking” and “Battle: Los Angeles”.

  2. Lord Bowler

    I want to see Jack Ryan, but I am disappointed that they are rebooting rather than going with the Jack Ryan, Jr. storyline Clancy started.

    Why try to bring a character with all of the history from the Cold War into the modern era as a reboot when you could’ve had both with Jack Ryan, Jr.

    “The Teeth of the Tiger” was a good book, which could have made an interesting jumping-off point for new series of Bourne-Reacher-Hunt type movies.

    I, Frankenstein didn’t look that interesting, more flash than substance. I still want to see it just for Yvonne Strahovski.

    I really wanted to see Knights of Badassdom, but it wasn’t playing in my area.

      • Lord Bowler

        Why even call it Jack Ryan Jr.?

        None of the other films were called Jack Ryan…

        The name of the book was great (possibly better than the story) and had its own great tagline: “When you kick a tiger in the ass, you better have a plan to deal with its teeth” (if memory serves)

        Isn’t it the Trailer’s job and marketing campaign to get people into seats.

        I barely saw the campaign for this movie, and it seems only there to sell Chris Pine… rather than the story.

        I would have liked to see a “Cardinal of the Kremlin” with Alec Baldwin before he went crazy.

        Supposedly, there is a John Clark movie in the works based on Without Remorse. Hopefully, this one makes enough for more.

        • The John Clark movie (Tom Hardy was being considered for the role) depended on the success of this film…so its future is questionable right now.

          Paramount’s original plan was to release Jack Ryan, then the John Clark film, then a movie based solely on Kevin Costner’s character before returning to Jack Ryan again…Costner’s character would appear in all of the movies.

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