The Judge has a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad weekend, Dracula does makes Untold millions, Kill The Messenger is DOA, the full list will give you Whiplash, and Other Box Office News.
This weekend, a terrifying curse was placed upon a certain set of people. One that rendered them scared, confused, worried about the changes and its effects, and unable to go out during the daytime (primarily because they don’t go out during the day, anyway). I am of course referring to the 48 hours in which the website known as Box Office Mojo ceased to exist. We film writers were thrown into a panic. “How on earth can we do our jobs now? What other monstrous websites will we have to patronize instead? Why hast thou forsaken us?!” we cried skyward to the heavens. But then, right on cue, the site returned this morning with no explanation for its absence! And so our great national nightmare was over!
You could say, then, that it was a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad weekend, in an incredibly lame segway towards referring to the box office stats. It was most certainly one for the “Robert Downey, Jr. has a space on his fireplace that he’s just freed up for some awards statues” flick known more commonly as The Judge. Not only did critics collectively shrug it away from any possible awards buzz, the film underwhelmed severely at the box office, despite featuring Robert Downey, Jr. doing that Robert Downey, Jr. thing that the people like, only debuting in fifth place with $13 million in ticket sales. Alexander, then, much like its titular character, ended up passing off that yadda yadda weekend to somebody else, opening with a surprisingly strong $19.1 million for third place.
That left it comfortably sat behind the number two film, Dracula Untold which debuted to a very surprisingly strong $23 million. Couple that with its currently-really-rather-successful overseas performance, and you have one genuinely surprised writer. In any case, that still puts it very much behind the weekend’s number 1 film, Gone Girl, which shed only 28% between weekends to hold onto the top spot. Couple that with its currently-very-successful overseas performance, and you get one very, very happy writer. Also sneaking into the Top 10 was the moderate release drama-thriller Addicted, which managed to overcome the handicap of apparently being complete garbage to score a seventh place debut and a near-$9000 per screen average.
As for those limited release films outside of the top 10, there’s a lot to parse through. First off, Meet the Mormons, which resides in 11th place on our countdown with a weekend gross of $2.7 million, from 317 screens, that are presumably from people who thought it was an expose on the making of The Book of Mormon. It is, though, the second biggest opening for a documentary all year, at any rate (behind Bears). Next up, we have the Jeremy Renner-starring and Mary Elizabeth Winstead-featuring Kill The Messenger, which tanked with only $939,000 from 374 screens. You know, because Mary Elizabeth Winstead is cursed at the box office. St. Vincent, a film starring Bill Murray and I know that’s all it needs to do to earn your ticket because that’s all it took to earn mine, managed to take $121,000 from 4 screens worth of people who had the exact same thought processes as us. Meanwhile, the critically lauded Whiplash kick-started its assault on the public with $144,000 worth of people in 6 screens wanting to see J.K. Simmons mentally and physically abuse the f*ck out of Miles Teller. The real abuse, as should be obvious, though, is withholding this film from us Brits until January the goddamn 16th of 2015!!
Oh, and One Chance, that biopic about the opera singer from Britain’s Got Talent, finally got released in America this past weekend. $32,800 from 43 screens. Absolutely worth the constant release date circle-jerking.
This Full List is being held in contempt of court! Everything that guy just said is bullsh*t! The Bible is a good book, but it’s not the only book! I believe there is justice in our hearts! You can’t handle the truth!
Box Office Results: Friday 10th October 2014 – Sunday 12th October 2014
1] Gone Girl
$26,800,000 / $78,281,000
Saw it again this weekend and again loved every second of it. It’s just such a brilliant film, and trying to articulate the reasons as to why I love it so in less than an A4 page when it inevitably ends up in the highest possible echelons of my Top 10 of 2014 list is going to be a monumental task. Look forward to that inevitable train-wreck of a series – yes, series, I’m planning in advance here, got a feeling the overall article would be in excess of 10 goddamn pages otherwise – in the future! For now, go see Gone Girl! Yes, even if you have already seen it. Go again.
2] Dracula Untold
$23,457,000 / NEW
So, yeah. Gonna be frank, I fully expected this one to out and out bomb. Like, straight flop as soon as it left the starting gates. It still could, next week has plenty of releases ready to steal its thunder and rumours are going around that the $70 mil price tag the film is sporting is significantly lower than its true budget, but it’s not an immediate and total failure, which I will likely never stop being surprised by. You people did see the awful trailer, right?
3] Alexander And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
$19,100,000 / NEW
Oh, Christ, this one. Look, I refuse to believe that it is anything less than a total steaming, nigh-on insufferable dud until I inevitably see it with my own eyes in the near-future. I’m also guessing that his work as Childish Gambino is not paying anywhere near enough to keep Donald Glover away from dreck like this. That’s a bit of a shame; because the internet isn’t too bad of an album.
4] Annabelle
$16,365,000 / $62,156,000
A 56% drop between weekends, which is a little steeper than The Conjuring’s but is still not too bad overall. Again, it’s got no direct competition for the whole of October, which is weirdly empty with regards to horror films this year, and Ouija, which drops at the very end of the month, will bomb to some degree (I have never been so sure of anything in my entire last 15 minutes of life). Annabelle will keep making money. Whether that’s a good thing or not is for you folks to judge.
5] The Judge
$13,300,000 / NEW
Robert Downey, Jr. really does just play the Robert Downey, Jr. role now, doesn’t he? That’s kind of a shame. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I really like Robert Downey, Jr., but he is capable of more and I’d rather he stretch himself and try to mitigate the risk of just coasting by on Iron Man. On a related heathen note, all three Iron Man films are my least favourite of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with the exception of The Incredible Hulk. Yes, even Iron Man 3. Expect my firing to be made public in a few hours.
6] The Equalizer
$9,725,000 / $79,885,000
Skipped it last Tuesday, before you ask. I fulfilled the “seeing Dolphin Tale 2” part of that plan and then was too “eeeeeeeeeehhhhhh”’d out to bother seeing The Equalizer on top of it. Guess I’ll never see it now. Oh, boo hoo. How I weep for such a missed opportunity.
7] Addicted
$7,600,000 / NEW
It wasn’t until I watched the trailer that I realised why this film came out of nowhere to make big, big bucks: it predominately stars, and is targeted at, black people. Let me be clear, that’s not meant to be an insult – for the love of God, it really is not. It’s instead an observation that there is a large segment of America that very much enjoy watching films aimed at them regardless of quality, and which are not white. In fact, it’s an observation that keeps being made every single time a film like that becomes successful, almost like it’s a fact about a mostly untapped market instead of an observation about trend that will die out soon…
8] The Maze Runner
$7,500,000 / $83,840,000
Penning my review as soon as I’ve finished with this. Short version: surprisingly, genuinely great until the abysmal ending cocks everything up. You should have seen me in the cinema; I visibly went from “Hell yes, bring on the sequel!” to “*exasperated groan* I guess I’ll see the sequel because I have to,” in the space of about 10 minutes. Again, review will be set for tomorrow, so sit tight for in-depth thoughts, but man I was so disappointed by this one.
$6,676,000 / $41,032,000
Oh. Oh. OK, remember last week when I said Laika were going to be OK? I want you to disregard that and instead hit all of your panic buttons. The budget is $60 mil, which it has only barely cleared thanks to foreign grosses, it’s currently sitting at less domestically than notorious under-performer ParaNorman, and The Book of Life (side note: PLEASE DO NOT SUCK) is coming along next week to hijack its audience. It may end up a hit on home video, which it deserves to be because Laika deserve all the success even with films that aren’t up to their usual standards, but I’m going to panic the f*ck out until somebody at Laika tells me I don’t need to.
10] Left Behind
$2,909,000 / $10,920,000
Still not going to make any obvious jokes at the expense of its title. I am above that. I have limits, y’know.
Dropped Out: This is Where I Leave You, Dolphin Tale 2, Guardians of the Galaxy, No Good Deed
Callie Petch couldn’t see they were the car you crashed.
Callie Petch 