For the third weekend in a row, ‘Gravity’ held strong atop the box office. Not only did it crush the other new movie releases, the sci-fi drama barely slipped in attendance, dropping only 28%. (Last weekend, it fell 23%.) The additional $31 million pushed its 17-day domestic total to $170.5 million. All told, ‘Gravity’ now sits at $284.7 million worldwide. Sadly, not one of this weekend’s three wide debuts could come close.
A remake nearly nabbed the #2 spot, but week-old ‘Captain Phillips‘ kept it at bay. Tom Hanks’ piracy film slipped 32% in attendance and earned another $17.3 million, while ‘Carrie‘ came in just behind with $17 million. As the only horror movie opening in October, this debut was lower than expected. With Halloween coming, the Stephen King re-adaptation is estimated to hold over better than most horror flicks, but it’s still not predicted to be much of a success.
Four-week-old ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2‘ was able to hold off Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The $10.1 million weekend pushed the animated comedy up to $93.1 million domestically. Meanwhile, ‘Escape Plan‘ debuted to $9.8 million, which is better than either of the actors’ solo ventures this year (Sly’s ‘Bullet to the Head‘ or Arnie’s ‘The Last Stand‘), but that isn’t saying much.
As bad as ‘Escape Plan’ performed, it was nothing compared to the disappointment of the WikiLeaks film. On 1,769 screens, ‘The Fifth Estate‘ couldn’t even crack the Top 5. Its $1.7 million premiere bumped the film back to the #8 spot. That gross is even more pathetic when you look at its per-screen average of just $969. It turns out that the history of WikiLeaks isn’t as fascinating to audiences as Buena Vista originally assumed.
In limited release, the much-praised period drama ‘12 Years a Slave‘ had an impressive opening. On just 19 screens, it earned more than half of what ‘The Fifth Estate’ did. The film’s $960,000 debut gave it a per-screen average of $50,526. Fox Searchlight can’t expand this release fast enough.
Robert Redford’s ‘All Is Lost‘ also did well. The stranded-at-sea, one-man-show opened on six screens and earned $97,400, for a per-screen average of $16,233.
Top 10:
1. ‘Gravity’ (Warner Bros.) – $31,030,000
2. ‘Captain Phillips’ (Sony) – $17,300,000
3. ‘Carrie’ (Screen Gems) – $17,000,000
4. ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2’ (Sony) – $10,100,000
5. ‘Escape Plan’ (Summit) – $9,800,000
6. ‘Prisoners’ (Warner Bros.) – $2,065,000
7. ‘Enough Said’ (Fox Searchlight) – $1,800,000
8. ‘The Fifth Estate’ (Buena Vista) – $1,714,000
9. ‘Runner Runner’ (Fox) – $1,625,000
10. ‘Insidious Chapter 2’ (FilmDistrict) – $1,533,000
