For the second year in a row, the first weekend of October has proved to be a Box Office bounce-back. Last year, 7-Oscar recipient “Gravity” opened on Oct. 4-6 to a huge $56 million, and Sony previewed the Tom Hanks drama “Captain Phillips” in more than 800 theaters nationwide.
Now, following a disappointing September, Oct. 3-5, 2014 has given us one of the closest battles in years, as the thriller “Gone Girl” beat the horror prequel “Annabelle” by just $800,000 in the Weekend Estimates. With $38 million, the page to screen adaptation of “Gone Girl”, starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike, took-in $38 million, while “Annabelle” grossed $37.2 million. Both films exceeded their respective studios’ (Fox, WB) expectations. UPDATE: “Gone Girl” beat “Annabelle” by just under $400,000 in the Weekend Actuals: $37.5M to $37.1M.
But congratulations are to be in order for all Top 5 movies of the weekend, as the “The Equalizer”, “The Boxtrolls” and “The Maze Runner” combined to make more than $43 million, bringing the Top 5 total to an impressive $118.6 million.
This is the time of year when big movies return and Awards Season contenders emerge. Robert Downey, Jr.’s “The Judge” and Brad Pitt’s “Fury”, along with family films “Alexander and the Bad Day” and “The Book of Life” should help the box office stay strong all the way through Halloween, leading into what should be a blockbuster November.
Lights Camera Jackson (a.k.a. Jackson Murphy) began his career as a film critic in 2006 at the age of 7. To date, Jackson has written nearly 1,000 reviews of new releases and, in total, has seen more than 1,500 films. In 2010, Jackson became the youngest person to win a NY Emmy Award, for his on-air movie reviews on Time Warner TV station, Capital News 9. And in 2011, Jackson was inducted into the Broadcast Film Critics Association as their youngest member. The BFCA’s annual Critics Choice Awards is one of the industry’s most recognized and prestigious awards shows. Jackson is also a member of SAG-AFTRA and votes annually for the Screen Actors Guild Awards.