The family dollar is atop the box office once again as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 topped the weekend box office with $35 million, which is only $5 million more than the first film brought in and well below the $42.5 million Hotel Transylvania brought in last September. Personally I have no idea what anyone saw in the first one and this sequel looked even worse as animation has had a rough go of it as of late, outside a couple decent films here and there.
In second was Prisoners with only a 46% drop from a solid start last week for the dark thriller giving it $11.3 million for the weekend, enough to top Ron Howard‘s Rush, which apparently American audiences just aren’t all that interested in despite overwhelmingly positive reviews.
Starring Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Bruhl, Rush managed only $10.3 million from 2,297 theaters. Budgeted at only $38 million the film should be just fine, and may even have some decent legs considering the “A-” CinemaScore. I certainly, however, anticipate it will have much higher returns overseas where F1 racing is a bigger sport and the story of the two characters portrayed in the film are better known.
In fourth, the Baggage Claim managed $9.3 million and a gut-wrenching “A-” CinemaScore. Then again, I have to assume the people polled walking out of this film weren’t the same discerning audience members walking out of Rush.
As a result, Joseph Gordon-Levitt‘s directorial debut, Don Jon, which was much better received by critics, fell to fifth with $9 million. And while it’s not a perfect film, it’s far more enjoyable than Baggage Claim and yet it scored only a “C+” with audiences, which may as well be an “F”.
On the more impressive side of things, Instructions Not Included has now brought in $38.5 million, which means it has passed Pan’s Labyrinth as the highest grossing Spanish language film ever. Also, Enough Said added 223 theaters to the four it played in last year and nearly cracked the top ten bringing in $2.1 million.
Next weekend October kicks off with the release of Gravity, Parkland and Runner, Runner, which is to say Prisoners and Rush have some serious competition in the adult category in theaters. Something has got to give, any early predictions?
