Jake Gyllenhaal and his new film “Nightcrawler” put up a good fight over the last weekend(our review here), but “Ouija” held out and won. I waited for the dust to settle on the weekend numbers before putting up this column because they were neck and neck. They were both estimated at $10.9 million, neither actually hitting the mark.
While those two films battled for the top spot the other three rounding out the top spot were also battling, they all came within about $600k of each other. “Gone Girl” has become David Fincher’s highest-grossing movie domestically. It has hit over $130 million after five weeks. Along with “Gone Girl” Brad Pitt’s latest “Fury” made its way to third place while the animated film “The Book of Life” took the last spot.
“John Wick” dropped form second to sixth while the new Bill Murray film “St. Vincent” made it’s way up the charts a little. It had a very small expansion and has held over well for a small film.
Tomorrow “Interstellar” hits and if the word from directors like Brad Bird and Edgar Wright means anything this is going to be big, but it will also be up against “Big Hero 6” starting on the 7th…guess we shall found out next Monday.
| Rank | Title | Weekend Gross | % Change | Total Gross | Week # | ||||||
| 1 | Ouija | $10,740,980 | -46.0% | $34,803,950 | 2 | ||||||
| 2 | Nightcrawler | $10,441,000 | – | $10,441,000 | 1 | ||||||
| 3 | Fury (2014) | $8,819,506 | -34.0% | $60,156,907 | 3 | ||||||
| 4 | Gone Girl | $8,480,992 | -23.2% | $136,282,506 | 5 | ||||||
| 5 | The Book of Life (2014) | $8,206,797 | -18.3% | $40,430,592 | 3 | ||||||
A quick note on budgets and dollar figures:
Films making back their budgets is a good sign, but that is just the money to film. It doesn’t include distribution and marketing. Marketing can cost as much as a film. That big Superbowl spot is spendy. So take that into account when judging a films success. Hitting $100 million isn’t the same as it once was.
All dollar amounts in the top 5 come from estimates based on ticket sales unless noted otherwise. Occasionally this article will be published when actual results come out, which is usually late Monday afternoon. For more about this and other ins and outs of movie tracking click here.