David Fincher’s Gone Girl, which topped the box office last week, dropped just 28.6% as it brought in $26.8, which was good enough to top a quartet of newcomers led by Legendary Pictures’ Dracula Untold, which earned $23.5 million. Hollywood’s fall winning streak continued as the newcomers and holdovers combined to give the top 12 films a 29.5% boost over the same weekend last year when Gravity topped the charts with $43.2 million.Gone Girl continued to be the "watercooler film of the month" with a buzz that is keeping the babysitters busy as adult viewers flock to the provocative thriller starring Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, and Carrie Coon. The movie is also doing well overseas, where it brought in $27 million this weekend for an overseas total of $63.3 million and the worldwide total for the $61 million production is now $141.6 million.
Dracula Untold is a $70 million "origin" story with little known actors so its $23.5 million bow has to be seen a big win for Legendary Pictures. Basically Dracula Untold just treats Dracula/Vlad the Impaler as a superhero who makes a Faustian bargain to free his people. Critics didn’t like this superhero makeover of Bram Stoker’s hero, giving it just a 26% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but audiences, which were 57% male and 61% over 25, gave the film an "A-" CinemaScore, and the movie has already earned $62.6 million overseas, where it has done especially well in Latin American countries. Hispanics made up 31% of the opening weekend audience, followed by Caucasians (29%), African-Americans (24%), and Asians (10%). With a strong CinemaScore, Dracula Untold should be around for a while, but it will face direct horror movie competition over the next few weeks.
Disney’s family film, Alexander and the Horrible, Terrible, Very Bad Day, landed in third place with a $19.1 million debut. Based on Judith Viorst’s classic 1972 children’s book, this $28 million movie has gotten very good reviews for a film in its genre (66% positive on Rotten Tomatoes), and it received a solid "A-" CinemaScore as it managed to attract its target audience (67% of the opening weekend admissions went to families). With good reviews and strong word-of-mouth, expect Alexander to make an extended stay in the cinemas.
Fourth place went to Warner Bros. horror film Annabelle, which dropped 55.9% in its second weekend, not a bad decline considering how well Dracula Untold did, as it added $16.4 million, bringing its domestic total to $62. 2 million, not bad for a film that cost just $6.5 million to produce.
| Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): October 10-12, 2014 | ||||||
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| Film | Weekend Gross | Screens | Avg./ Screen | Total Gross | Wk# |
| 1 | Gone Girl | $26,800,000 | 3,284 | $8,161 | $78,281,000 | 2 |
| 2 | Dracula Untold | $23,457,000 | 2,885 | $8,131 | $23,457,000 | 1 |
| 3 | Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day | $19,100,000 | 3,088 | $6,185 | $19,100,000 | 1 |
| 4 | Annabelle | $16,365,000 | 3,215 | $5,090 | $62,156,000 | 2 |
| 5 | The Judge | $13,330,000 | 3,003 | $4,439 | $13,330,000 | 1 |
| 6 | The Equalizer | $9,725,000 | 3,117 | $3,120 | $79,885,000 | 3 |
| 7 | Addicted | $7,600,000 | 846 | $8,983 | $7,600,000 | 1 |
| 8 | The Maze Runner | $7,500,000 | 3,072 | $2,441 | $83,840,000 | 4 |
| 9 | The Boxtrolls | $6,676,000 | 3,270 | $2,042 | $41,032,000 | 3 |
| 10 | Left Behind | $2,909,000 | 1,887 | $1,542 | $10,920,000 | 2 |
Robert Downey, Jr. produced The Judge, debuted in fifth place with $13.3 million. This family legal drama is also a sort of acting master class with RDJ going up against Robert Duvall, and audiences liked the film a lot more (a solid "A-" CinemaScore) than the critics, who gave the film just a 47% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Gone Girl’s continuing strength certainly hurt The Judge, which targets the same literate, adult audience. The Judge attracted an audience that was 55% female and 85% over 25 years old.
Sony’s The Equalizer slipped to #6 in its third weekend as it earned $9.7 million and drove its domestic total to nearly $80 million. The EQ probably lost some viewers to Addicted, a sex-addiction drama from Lionsgate that targets the underserved African-American audience. Playing in just 846 theaters, Addicted averaged $8,983 per venue the highest average among all widely released films this weekend.
In its fourth weekend in theaters the dystopian teen drama The Maze Runner slipped to #8 as it earned an estimated $7.5 million to bring its domestic total to $83.8 million. Laika’s stop-motion animated The Boxtrolls slipped to #9 in its third weekend as it brought in $6.7 million and drove its domestic cumulative to $60 million. The Nicolas Cage-starring remake of the "rapture drama" Left Behind solidified its bomb status as it fell to #10 in its second weekend. The documentary Meet the Mormons, which profiles Mormons from all over the world, earned $2.7 million from just 317 theaters, which was good enough to rank at #11, and a lot better than the Jeremy Renner-starring drama Kill the Messenger, which debuted outside the top ten, earning just $939,000 from 374 theaters.
In its eleventh weekend in theaters, Guardians of the Galaxy finally slipped out of the top 10 as it earned $1.8 million, bringing its 2014-leading domestic total to $326.1 million. Look for the Marvel space opera to finish with at least $330 million. Overseas GOTG finally opened in China where it debuted with a solid $26.6 million, the biggest October debut of all time for a Hollywood movie in China. GOTG has now earned $687 million worldwide, which is well past Man of Steel’s global total of $663 million.
Be sure to check back here next week to see how Brad Pitt’s gritty World War II drama Fury, the animated feature The Book of Life, and Nicholas Spark’s adaptation of The Best of Me all open in wide release.
--Tom Flinn
