Gavin Hood's adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game topped the charts during a lackluster weekend at the domestic box office, but overseas Marvel Studios’ Thor: The Dark World got off to a sterling start earning $109.4 million as it opened in about 70% of the overseas territories. Ender’s Game brought in a solid $28 million to lead the domestic box office, while the Jackass spin-off Bad Grandpa posted a strong hold. But the geezer comedy Last Vegas and the animated feature Free Birds debuted meekly and the overall box office was down 7.5% from the same frame last year when the Disney animated feature Wreck-It Ralph debuted with $49 million.Thor: The Dark World, which opens here next weekend, is off to a solid start overseas where it opened in 36 territories, representing about 70% of the marketplace outside of North America (China, Japan, Italy, and Argentina are yet to come). The Thor sequel took in a solid $5.2 million from Wednesday showings and had earned $42.5 million by Friday. Thor: The Dark World’s $109.4 million international debut is the fourth highest overseas bow of 2013 so far and The Dark World is running well ahead of the first Thor movie in most territories. Thor’s international debut overshadowed Ender’s Game domestic triumph and left little doubt about which film will come out on top next weekend.
Ender’s Game represents yet another attempt to start a franchise based on a popular YA fantasy or science fiction novel (though author Orson Scott Card protests that he wrote Ender’s Game for adults). Asa Butterfield (Hugo) stars as the eponymous tween hero supported by a strong cast that includes the perennially glum Harrison Ford and the always dependable Ben Kingsley as well as Viola Davis, Hailee Steinfeld, and Abigail Breslin. Reviews were mixed-to-positive (62% positive on Rotten Tomatoes), but audiences gave Ender’s Game a solid "A-" CinemaScore.
Ender’s Game also opened overseas in 28 overseas territories where it earned an additional $9.1 million, but where it was trounced by the Thor sequel, an outcome that is likely to be repeated here next week. With a production cost of $110 million and an extensive marketing campaign, Ender’s Game is going to have to pick up the pace just to make its money back, and that will be difficult here in the coming weeks with competition from Thor: The Dark World and The Hunger Games sequel, which debuts on November 22nd. However Ender’s Game may have better ”legs” than many expect since it evidently appeals to an older audience than expected with 58% of the opening weekend crowd over 25. Still, at this point the prospect of an Ender’s Game movie franchise appears increasingly unlikely.
| Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): November 1-3, 2013 | ||||||
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| Film | Weekend Gross | Screens | Avg./ Screen | Total Gross | Wk# |
| 1 | Ender's Game | $28,000,000 | 3,407 | $8,218 | $28,000,000 | 1 |
| 2 | Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa | $20,500,000 | 3,345 | $6,129 | $62,058,000 | 2 |
| 3 | Last Vegas | $16,520,000 | 3,065 | $5,390 | $16,520,000 | 1 |
| 4 | Free Birds | $16,200,000 | 3,736 | $4,336 | $16,200,000 | 1 |
| 5 | Gravity | $13,130,000 | 3,024 | $4,342 | $219,196,000 | 5 |
| 6 | Captain Phillips | $8,500,000 | 3,021 | $2,814 | $82,551,000 | 4 |
| 7 | 12 Years a Slave | $4,600,000 | 410 | $11,220 | $8,760,000 | 3 |
| 8 | Cloudy w/ a Chance of Meatballs 2 | $4,200,000 | 2,430 | $1,728 | $106,195,000 | 6 |
| 9 | Carrie | $3,400,000 | 2,252 | $1,510 | $31,973,000 | 3 |
| 10 | The Counselor | $3,250,000 | 3,044 | $1,068 | $13,368,000 | 2 |
Last week’s winner Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa dropped just 36%, demonstrating a much better “hold” than is typical for the franchise, and at least part of the reason is the lack of comedies in the marketplace. Produced for just $15 million, Bad Grandpa has already earned $62 million.
Last Vegas, which stars Morgan Freeman, Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, and Kevin Kline, clearly targets an older demographic. Produced for $28 million, this bucket list comedy did a bit better than expected and should have a fairly extended run at the box office since the older crowd that it targets typically don’t rush to the Cineplex on the first weekend.
Free Birds, a sort of an animated attack on the primary meat served at the American Thanksgiving holiday feast, opened weakly. With its international prospects limited by its quintessential American subject matter, Free Birds will have to improve its box office performance quickly to have any chance of making back its $55 million cost. The good news for Relativity Media and Reel FX, the producers of Free Birds is that audiences gave it a solid "A-" CinemaScore. Critics were not so kind, lambasting the movie, which currently has a Tomatometer Reading of just 21% positive.
Three major Oscar contenders took spots 5-7 on the chart. Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity dropped just 34.8% in its fifth weekend as it earned $13.1 million, bringing its domestic total to $219.2 million. Meanwhile the modern piracy saga Captain Phillips only dropped 27% as it added $8.5 million to bring its total to $82.5 million, and Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave added 287 theaters, bringing its total to 410, and earning $4.6 million, which gave it the best per-venue average in the top 10 ($11.220 versus $8,218 for Ender’s Game).
Check back here next week for an early update as the highly anticipated Thor: The Dark World opens in North America.
