Weekend Box Office: Three Days of Thunder

No surprise, Marvel’s latest comic book venture dominated the box office both domestically and internationally this weekend. In comparison, everything else just did okay.

Like ‘Iron Man 3’, this weekend’s superhero sequel benefited greatly from the success of ‘The Avengers’. After three days, ‘Thor: The Dark World‘ has earned $86.1 million domestically, more than $20 million higher than 2011’s ‘Thor’. Although ‘The Dark World’ shared IMAX screens with ‘Ender’s Game’, the large-screen format showings did very well. $5.3 million came from IMAX showings. Overseas, the hammer-swinging hero has brought in $240.9 million over the last ten days, giving the film a worldwide total of $327 million. The first ‘Thor’ earned $449.3 million worldwide, and this one is on its way to even greater success.

Bad Grandpa‘ held on to the #2 spot with another $11.3 million. After 17 days, the $15 million ‘Jackass‘ spin-off has earned $78.7 million and is on track to cross the $100 million mark. ‘Free Birds‘ and ‘Last Vegas‘ both dropped around 30% in attendance and flip-flopped for the third and fourth place positions. Both earned $11.1 million, but ‘Free Birds’ got a wing up with an additional $80,000 over ‘Last Vegas’. Of course, these rankings could switch when the weekend actuals are announced later today.

With a steep 62% decline, ‘Ender’s Game‘ dropped from first place to fifth. Its second weekend brought $10.2 million. After ten days, the $110 million sci-fi flick has earned $44 million. At this point, ‘Ender’s Game’ is performing below this summer’s flop ‘After Earth‘.

The nationwide expansions of ‘12 Years a Slave‘ and ‘About Time‘ to around 1,200 screens each proved a smart move, more so for ‘Slave’ than ‘Time’. The $6.6 million brought in by ’12 Years a Slave’ pushed its worldwide total to $17.3 million. ‘About Time’ pulled in $5.1 million and is expected to hold over relatively well during the next few weeks.

Fox’s Holocaust drama ‘The Book Thief‘ had a decent four-screen debut. Its $108,000 is a good sign, but the “rotten” critical score on Rotten Tomatoes signals that the movie might not be as great as it sounds. Fox has yet to announce expansion plans.

The Lance Armstrong documentary ‘The Armstrong Lie‘ had a very mild opening. From five screens, the doc earned $30,900.

The numbers for Saoirse Ronan’s wartime drama ‘How I Live Now‘ have yet to be announced.

Top 10:

1. ‘Thor: The Dark World’ (Buena Vista) – $86,109,000

2. ‘Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa’ (Paramount) – $11,300,000

3. ‘Free Birds’ (Relativity) – $11,180,000

4. ‘Last Vegas’ (CBS) – $11,100,000

5. ‘Ender’s Game’ (Summit) – $10,250,000

6. ‘Gravity’ (Warner Bros.) – $8,405,000

7. ’12 Years a Slave’ (Fox Searchlight) – $6,600,000

8. ‘Captain Phillips’ (Sony) – $5,800,000

9. ‘About Time’ (Universal) – $5,172,000

10. ‘Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2’ (Sony) – $2,800,000

8 comments

  1. William Henley

    I wonder why Ender’s Game is performing so poorly. I thought for sure this would be a shoe-in for highest-grossing movie of the year.

      • William Henley

        Yes, but over 10 days, Ender has generated $44 million. Thor got $86.1 million in three days. Are you saying the same target audience will not go to the theaters two weekends in a row?

        • Ender never had anywhere near the box office potential of a Marvel movie. The majority of viewers who were interested in seeing Ender did so during opening weekend. They are unlikely to go back to see it again, especially not now that Thor has opened to distract their attention. Thor will have more staying power, because comic book movies typically inspire repeat viewings from the core teenage audience, and there’s no new competition in that same demographic opening until The Hunger Games on the 22nd.

          • William Henley

            Makes sense – so it isn’t the fact that Ender’s Game opened with bad timing, it is the fact that you will not see as many repeat theatrical viewings, if I understand you correctly.

            I can see this – I know several who have already seen Thor two or three times (I may go catch it again on a matinee), but I probably won’t see Ender again until its disc release

    • T.J. Kats

      I haven’t read the book so I can only go off the previews but I thought everything showed to advertise the movie looked horrible.

    • Jason

      having not read the book I got the feeling from the trailers that it was a big screen adaptation of the old arcade game Galaga.

    • JM

      ‘Ender’s Game’ is four quadrants of failure. Mass audiences don’t support child protagonists. And trailers matter.

      No love interest for girls above/below 25.

      Guys below 25 pay to be badass, Ender looks whiney.

      Guys above 25, there’s nothing for them if they haven’t read the book (guys inclined to wait for blu-ray). The entire IP is devoid of awesome.

      Harry P and Twilight are the 1%. The box office is littered with failed Young Adults.

      The only question this year is will ‘The Hobbit 1.2’ beat ‘Iron Man3’s $1.2 Billion?

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