Weekend Box Office Report: October 10-12 2014

By Kip Mooney • On • In News News 0

BOX OFFICE REPORT 

October 10-12, 2014(estimates from BoxOfficeMojo.com)

TOP 51. Gone Girl ($26.8 million)2. Dracula Untold ($23.4 million)3. Alexander and the... ($19.1 million)4. Annabelle ($16.3 million)5. The Judge  ($13.3 million)

Gone Girl stayed on top for a second week, dropping a ridiculously low 28.6 percent. Only The LEGO Movie had a lower fall in its second week this year. The adult thriller has great word-of-mouth and is likely to remain the best option for smart moviegoers until the glut of Oscar-minded films start cropping up in November, December and January. 

Dracula Untold came closest to unseating the champ, taking in $23.4 million. That's much better than the competition, but it nearly cost more than its competition combined. Still, Universal has to be pleased, especially since it plans to reboot its entire monster line (Frankenstein, The Mummy, etc). Alexander didn't share the opening of its title. It was merely a pretty good day, but expect it to fall once it faces the challenge of going up against animated flicks The Book of Life and Big Hero 6.

It was Robert Downey Jr.'s The Judge that actually had the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Weekend. With only $13.3 million, it's not going to be a big hit with audiences and its lousy reviews have already killed with critics. It's guilty of being a flop, unlike Annabelle, which has now made $62 million in just 10 days.

Outside the top 5: - This Weekend's Indie Champ: St. Vincent, Bill Murray's charming comedy about a misanthrope taking care of his neighbor's kid, averaged $30,250 on each of its four screens.

- Meet the Mormons, a documentary about several members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, did startlingly well. It finished at No. 11 despite only playing on 317 screens.

- Audiences did not have faith or patience for Christian Mingle: The Movie. It made only $20,500 on 15 screens. Ads are for before the movie, not during.

Next week: Studios are trying to hit all the major demographics. For the ladies, there's the latest Nicholas Sparks adaptation The Best of Me. For guys, there's the WWII drama Fury. And for the kiddos, there's The Book of Life. Who's got the best chance? I think The Book of Life, even though the studio (ReelFX) isn't a major player in the animation game yet. I think it'll take the top spot with $30 million.

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About Kip Mooney

Kip Mooney
Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.

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