We knew it was going to win, but by how much was the big question and the $17.5 million it tallied on Friday suggested something around $49 million, but Gravity held on stronger than that, finishing the three-day weekend with an estimated $55.6 million and a new October opening weekend record, besting Paranormal Activity 3‘s $52.5m back in 2011.
The big story concerning this one is the fact 80% of the total came from 3D screenings and 20% from IMAX screenings. It also has one box office tracker calling Sandra Bullock the “most bankable actress in Hollywood” noting four of her last six films have opened over $30 million, none of which were sequels. Hard to argue with those numbers.
Gravity has already shown it has legs and with an “A-” CinemaScore it will be interesting to see how long they are as it will have to contend with Captain Phillips next weekend for the adult ticket while a lot of the genre fans will have likely seen it and will perhaps check out Machete Kills. However, the Machete sequel may suffer a little of audiences skip the new film and decide on a second helping of Gravity. Could be interesting.
Also opening wide this weekend was Runner Runner starring Ben Affleck, Justin Timberlake and Gemma Arterton and the negative reviews bled over into a terrible opening as the so-called “thriller” managed only $7.6 million this weekend and with a “C” CinemaScore I don’t think we’ll be hearing from this one for much longer.
Runner Runner did, however, fare a little better overseas where it brought in $23.5 million. With a budget just under $30 million the film will probably be fine financially, but it is clearly having a rough go of it.
Following on the heels of the success of the Spanish-language film Instructions Not Included, Lionsgate has issued another one into theaters, this one is called Pulling Strings and with only 387 screens it totalled $2.5 million on its opening weekend. Maybe Lionsgate has figured something out? That being that there are more than just white males aged 13-34 living in America. Maybe?
Next we come to Metallica Through the Never, which expanded into 650 theaters this weekend and probably had a hard time keeping up considering stiff competition from Gravity, which clearly dominated the IMAX 3D screens. Unfortunately, despite adding 284 theaters, the film dropped 57% from last weekend, bringing in only $682,692 this weekend. Like I said, just couldn’t compete and likely didn’t have more than one or two screenings a day in most of those locations.
Because it was in our reader box office challenge this week, I must also include Parkland, which crashed and burned to the tune of $335,000 from 257 theaters, only $1,304 per. Ouch.
The complete top ten is listed below and I will be back on Monday with actuals and official results for this week’s reader predictions.
