It was a bad weekend for the roses, as The Best of Me opened to the weakest first frame of a Nicholas Sparks adaptation ever. Earning just $10.2 million to take fifth place, the romantic drama could not compete with female-skewing titles like Gone Girl. With poor reviews and little star power – James Marsden and Michelle Monaghan are great actors but have little experience opening a film on their own – this was not too much of a surprise. The opening weekend was even lower than A Walk to Remember ($12.2 million) and Nights in Rodanthe ($13.4 million), formerly the lowest-grossing adaptations of the bestselling author’s work. The film made less on Saturday than it did on Friday as well, so do not expect this one to stay around at the multiplex very long.
While there was no shortage of mainstream titles for adults this week, many films had solid to spectacular openings and expansions in limited release. Foremost, the much-anticipated meta-comedy Birdman, starring Michael Keaton, soared to a remarkable opening of $415,000 from only 4 theaters. That is an explosive $103,750 per cinema, a stronger per theater average than titles like The King’s Speech, Inside Llewyn Davis and The Tree of Life made when they opened in four theaters in limited release. Expect Birdman to be a popular title over the next month as it expands to more locations.
Meanwhile, the Bill Murray comedy St. Vincent had a decent expansion, grossing $685,000 from 68 theaters. Dear White People connected with younger crowds, despite a lot of competition and a little-known cast, to make $344,000 from only 11 locations. On the other hand, the results were LOL-worthy for the drama Men, Women & Children, which expanded to a wide release in more than 600 theaters but made a pitiful $320,000. (It made less money in a total of 608 theaters than Birdman made in only four.) With bad reviews and little momentum, expect this title to be on Blu-Ray within the foreseeable future.
Here are the numbers for the Top 10 films at the North American box office for the weekend of October 10 through 12, 2014:
1. Fury – $23.5 million (NEW)
2. Gone Girl – $17.8 million ($107.1 million total)
3. The Book of Life – $17 million (NEW)
4. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day – $12 million ($36.9 million total)
5. The Best of Me – $10.2 million (NEW)
6. Dracula Untold – $9.9 million ($40.7 million total)
7. The Judge – $7.9 million ($26.8 million total)
8. Annabelle – $7.9 million ($74.1 million total)
9. The Equalizer – $5.5 million ($89.2 million total)
10. The Maze Runner – $4.5 million ($90.8 million total)
NOTE: These numbers are weekend estimates based on Friday and Saturday’s estimated takes. Actual numbers for the three-day weekend are reported on Monday afternoon.
