Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity maintained its control over the top spot on the box office chart for the third weekend in a row as it dropped just 28.2% earning $31 million and bringing its domestic total to $170.5 million.  Another Oscar hopeful, the Tom Hanks Somali pirate drama Captain Phillips, also fared well dropping just 32.7% and remaining in second place for the second week in a row.  The horror film Carrie opened at the low end of expectations, while the Sylvester Stallone/Arnold Schwarzenegger geri-action movie Escape Plan landed with thud and the Wikileaks saga The Fifth Estate was strictly DOA.  With little help from newcomers, the overall box office was down 17.7% from the same frame last year when Paranormal Activity 4 debuted with $29 million.
 
Gravity has become a worldwide phenomenon, and continues to draw well especially at IMAX theaters, which have produced $38 million of the film’s $170 million domestic total so far.  Only Avatar managed a better third weekend total at IMAX theaters, and, while Gravity won’t be able to match Avatar’s mammoth totals, the comparison is apt, and it is already clear that Cuaron’s film is a big, big hit.
 
Paul Greengrass’s Captain Phillips continues its steady box office performance.  Buoyed by strong reviews and an "A" CinemaScore, Captain Phillips is also off to a good start overseas where it earned $9.1 million this weekend.

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): October 18-20, 2013
	Film	Weekend Gross	Screens	Avg./ Screen	Total Gross	Wk#
1	Gravity	$31,030,000	3,820	$8,123	$170,566,000	3
2	Captain Phillips	$17,300,000	3,020	$5,728	$53,300,000	2
3	Carrie	$17,000,000	3,157	$5,385	$17,000,000	1
4	Cloudy w/ a Chance of Meatballs 2	$10,100,000	3,602	$2,804	$93,137,000	4
5	Escape Plan	$9,800,000	2,883	$3,399	$9,800,000	1
6	Prisoners	$2,065,000	2,160	$956	$57,259,000	5
7	Enough Said	$1,800,000	757	$2,378	$10,787,000	5
8	The Fifth Estate	$1,714,000	1,769	$969	$1,714,000	1
9	Runner Runner	$1,625,000	2,011	$808	$17,536,000	3
10	Insidious Chapter 2	$1,533,000	1,665	$921	$80,923,000	6

Many analysts predicted the remake of Steven King’s Carrie starring Chloe Grace-Moretz would open over $20 million, but the movies $17 million bow doesn’t mean it’s a total failure.  Produced for under $30 million, the film received a "B-" CinemaScore, a poor grade for action movie, but a solid score for a horror film.  With the King connection, Carrie has a chance to do some business overseas as well.  Females predominated during the first weekend (54%) as did younger viewers (56% under 25).
 
The animated feature Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 dropped just 26.7% as it earned an estimated $10.1 million and brought its domestic cumulative to $93.1 million.  So far the film has earned just 31.1 million overseas and needs to do a lot better in order to make back its $80 million cost.
 
Escape Plan continues the run of box office bombs and underachievers that Arnold Schwarzenegger has starred in since the end of his political career.  Is it partisanship or just old age that is catching up with the Governator?  Who knows, but other thespians planning political career should be aware that there appears to be a bit of bridge-burning involved.  As expected males dominated the opening weekend audience (55%), and they gave the film some hope with a "B+" CinemaScore.  Escape Plan is doing better overseas where it has earned $14.1 million from 34 territories.
 
Mention should be made of Enough Said, a romcom for the older crowd featuring the late James Gandofini and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, which ended up at #7 in spite of being in just 757 theaters.  While it will never be a big hit, this movie has found a niche particularly in big city markets.
 
In spite of all sorts of hoopla, the Wikileaks drama The Fifth Estate, which stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange, bombed with a pitiful opening weekend gross of $1.7 million, the worst debut of the year so far for a film bowing in more than 1,500 theaters.  Evidently Assange’s followers and fans hate the movie because of its source material (books by Assange’s disillusioned former co-workers), and nobody else is very interested in this saga of a sniveling self-righteous computer snitch.  This movie is also tanking overseas.
 
But watch out for Steve McQueen’s 12 Years as a Slave, an adaptation of a true life slavery horror story from the 1850s that is the best movie ever made on the subject of American slavery.  Opening in just 19 theaters, 12 Years as a Slave averaged a potent $50,526 per theater.  The average will come down as the movie goes wide, but every indication is that this will be one of the most popular serious "art" films of 2013.
 
Check back here next week when author Cormac (No Country for Old Men) McCarthy’s adult drama The Counselor opens, along with (from the other side of the artistic spectrum) Jackass Presents: Bad Grampa.