Well, shows you how much I know. On Friday, I predicted bio-flick “Captain Phillips” would win the weekend, and crush defending champion “Gravity.” Boy was I wrong!
Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are dominating the Fall box office. After setting an October opening weekend record, “Gravity” dropped just 21 percent to an estimated $44.3 million. But even more impressive, “Gravity” earned $9 million in IMAX, which is the highest second weekend ever for the format. putting “Gravity” slightly ahead of “The Dark Knight Rises” which held the record with $8.99 million. After only 10 days, “Gravity” has earned an impressive $123.4 million domestically, and another $68,000,000 in foreign markets.
Clearly, I underestimated Gravity’s strong word-of-mouth. When I saw “Captain Phillips” on Friday night, people were buzzing about “Gravity”. Apparently, seeing the movie on the big screen in 3D is an event. For what its worth, the film’s 3D share was 82 percent this weekend, up from 80 percent in its opening weekend.The movie is likely to keep up this momentum at least another couple of weeks.
But In early November, “Gravity” will lose some IMAX and 3D screens to “Ender’s Game” and “Thor: The Dark World.” Even so, for “Gravity” the sky is the limit, and th $300 million mark could be within reach.
“Captain Phillips” did strong business in its opening weekend, but it didn’t come close to Gravity’s numbers. Playing at 3,020 theaters, “Captain Phillips” opened to a very good $26 million. While that’s not record-breaking, it is better than the openings of 2012 award season darlings “Zero Dark Thirty” ($24.4 million) and “Argo” ($19.5 million), both of which opened on the same weekend last year.
$26 million is also one of the better openings for star Tom Hanks, who needed a box office boost after disappointing box office performers like “Cloud Atlas,” “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” and “Larry Crowne.”
According to reports, the audience for “Captain Phillips” was 52 percent male and 62 percent over the age of 35. I believe that, because I was the definitely youngest person in the theatre on Friday night. The film had a $55 million budget, and it should easily cross that once the movie opens in foreign markets. “Captain Phillips” won’t be a blockbuster, but it should earn around $75 million when all is said and done.
In third place we find animated sequel “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2.” The film fell 32 percent to an estimated $14.2 million. To date, the animated film has earned $78 million, which is a bit below the original Cloudy through the same point. With little competition, this movie should keep on rolling.
The bomb of the week landed in fourth place. “Machete Kills” was dead on arrival, earning just $3.8 million. This is one of the worst openings ever for a movie playing in over 2,500 locations, and it’s also one of the worst openings of 2013. I bet Robert Rodriguez is counting the days until the Sin City sequel hits theatres.
It would seem adding Mel Gibson, Sofia Vergara, Lady Gaga and “Carlos Estevez” did little for the sequel. “Machete Kills” opened to one-third of the first Machete’s $11.4 million, which is an incredibly steep decline for any sequel. “Machete Kills” received a”B-” CinemaScore, which is better than I would have guessed. With heavy competition on the way, “Machete Kills” is unlikely to hit $10 million at the box office.
Your top five movies this weekend:
1. Gravity – $44.2 million
2. Captain Phillips – $26 million
3. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 – $14.2 million
4. Machete Kills – $3.79 million
5. Runner Runner – $3.73 million