Tate Taylor’s The Girl on a Train took the top spot at the weekend box office will a $24.7 million debut, but Nate Parker’s Birth of a Nation fell short of expectations, and the overall box office was down about 13% from the same frame last year when The Martian held serve for the second weekend in a row with $37 million.  The decline in the weekly box office was actually less than it has been in previous weeks, and Hurricane Matthew undoubtedly affected business in Florida and the Carolinas, so the downward trend that we have seen this fall may be moderating.

Universal was obviously hoping that The Girl on the Train, which was adapted from a novel by Paula Hawkins, would reprise the success of 2014’s Gone Girl, but Taylor’s film didn’t come close to matching the $37.4 million that David Fincher’s Gone Girl earned on its opening weekend.  In spite of a strong performance from Emily Blunt, The Girl on Train, which has a current rating of just 44% positive on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, couldn’t match the critical notices of Gone Girl, which got far better notices (88% positive on RT).  Audiences liked Gone Girl better too, giving it a “B” CinemaScore compared with The Girl on a Train’s “B-,” though the small difference in ratings and the popularity of Paula Hawkins’ novel do indicate that this $50 million production has a chance.

As might be expected the audience for The Girl on the Train skewed female (70%) and older, with 55% of the audience over 35.

Tim Burton’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, slipped to #2 in its second weekend as it dropped 48%, earning $15 million and bringing its domestic total to $51.1 million.  Burton’s film, which is yet to open in China, Japan, or France, has earned $94 million overseas, and still has a shot at box office success, if it can hold up in the face on continuing competition.

The rest of the holdovers in the top ten all post small declines.  Peter Berg’s disaster film Deepwater Horizon slipped just 42% as it brought in $11.8 million to bring its domestic total to $38.5 million.  It is still too early for a definitive take the film’s prospects, but unless it demonstrates unusually strong legs here in North America, it appears unlikely to recoup its $110+ million production cost.

Antoine Fuqua’s western remake, The Magnificent Seven, slipped just 41% as it brought in $9.2 million to bring its 3-weekend total to $75.2 million.  In spite of a better hold this week, the prospects for The Magnificent Seven are fairly bleak, since it has not done well in the increasingly important overseas market, and still needs a substantial boost to avoid red ink.  With a disappointing box office run like this, it is unlikely to see a revival of big-budget westerns anytime soon.

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): October 7-9, 2016
	Film	Weekend Gross	Screens	Avg./Screen	Total Gross	Wk#
1	The Girl on the Train	$24,660,000	3,144	$7,844	$24,660,000	1
2	Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children	$15,000,000	3,705	$4,049	$51,053,483	2
3	Deepwater Horizon	$11,750,000	3,259	$3,605	$38,518,388	2
4	The Magnificent Seven	$9,150,000	3,696	$2,476	$75,915,393	3
5	Storks	$8,450,000	3,608	$2,342	$50,118,494	3
6	The Birth of a Nation	$7,100,000	2,105	$3,373	$7,100,000	1
7	Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life	$6,900,000	2,822	$2,445	$6,900,000	1
8	Sully	$5,270,000	3,058	$1,723	$113,485,432	5
9	Masterminds (2016)	$4,100,000	3,042	$1,348	$12,788,325	2
10	Queen of Katwe	$1,618,000	1,259	$1,285	$5,384,636	3

Warner Bros.’ animated feature Storks also held up well, dropping just 37% as it earned $8.4 million to bring its domestic total to $50.1 million, but any hopes of matching The LEGO Movie’s sterling performance are long gone, and it too will have to keep doing well just to assure that it won’t lose money.

Nate Parker’s saga of the Nat Turner Rebellion, The Birth of a Nation, was the best reviewed new film (79% positive on RT), and it received an “A” CinemaScore from opening weekend audiences.  The problem here is the perception of failure based on not meeting analysts’ expectations of a $10 million opening or better.  This is obviously a film with Oscar potential, and should not be counted out yet, though it appears that attendance has been hurt by a controversy surrounding a rape charge leveled against Parker when he was a college student.

The Birth of a Nation earned $7.1 million, and is in little danger of losing money (Fox Searchlight paid just $17.5 million to acquire the Sundance Film Festival sensation), but the film’s Oscar hopes could be damaged if it doesn’t achieve a modicum of box office success.  African-Americans made up 60% of the audience for the opening weekend of Birth of a Nation.

This week’s other new widely released film, Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life, is in a virtual dead heat with Birth of a Nation.  Produced for just $8.5 million, this adaptation of yet another assembly-line novel from the James Patterson factory, appears well-positioned to make modest profits.  Opening weekend audiences were split evenly by gender, with 54% of the crowd under 18—and they gave the film a solid “A-“ CinemaScore.

Also this week, Disney’s Finding Dory passed the $1 billion dollar mark, becoming the 27th film to pass the mark, and Disney’s third film to do so in 2016, which has been a very good year for the Mouse House.  Meanwhile Warner Bros.’ Suicide Squad passed Deadpool in overseas earnings, though it still trails the “merc with a mouth” masterpiece by $40 million on the domestic front.

Be sure to check back here next week to see if the adult drama The Accountant, which stars Ben (Batman) Affleck, the Mattel toy-based, micro-budgeted ($15-20 million) superhero film Max Steel, or the Kevin Hart concert film Kevin Hart: What Now? can revive the fading fall box office.