Ride Along, the buddy cop comedy starring Kevin Hart and Ice Cube, topped the box office for a third straight weekend with an estimated $12.3 million, while Disney’s Frozen, thanks to a new "sing-along" version, actually posted a 2.1% gain in its tenth weekend of wide release.  Overall the total of the top 12 films was up slightly from the same weekend last year, when the Twilight wannabe Warm Bodies topped the box office with $20.3 million.
 
Ride Along, which was made for $25 million, has now earned nearly $93 million domestically in just 17 days and should pass the $100 million mark by this time next week.  Meanwhile Disney’s Frozen earned an estimated $9.3 million, which brings its domestic cumulative to $360 million.  While this is considerably less than The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’s domestic total of $421.5 million, Frozen is doing better overseas and has now surpassed $860 million worldwide, putting it ahead of Catching Fire’s global total of $859.5 million.
 
This week’s two newcomers made the top ten, though they didn’t challenge for box office supremacy.  Focus Features’ R-rated romcom That Awkward Moment landed in third place with an estimated $9 million.  The indie comedy, which was produced for just 8 million, attracted an audience that was 64% female, and quite young for an "R-rated" film with 61% of ticket buyers under 25.  The opening weekend crowd gave the film a mediocre "B" CinemaScore, but at least it was a better mark than the 22% positive rating the film earned on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): January 31- February 2, 2014
	Film	Weekend Gross	Screens	Avg./ Screen	Total Gross	Wk#
1	Ride Along	$12,314,000	2,867	$4,295	$92,977,000	3
2	Frozen	$9,310,000	2,754	$3,381	$360,013,000	11
3	That Awkward Moment	$9,010,000	2,809	$3,208	$9,010,000	1
4	The Nut Job	$7,613,000	3,472	$2,193	$50,246,000	3
5	Lone Survivor	$7,161,000	3,285	$2,180	$104,855,000	6
6	Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit	$5,400,000	2,907	$1,858	$38,968,000	3
7	Labor Day	$5,300,000	2,584	$2,051	$5,300,000	1
8	American Hustle	$4,300,000	2,216	$1,940	$133,600,000	8
9	The Wolf of Wall Street	$3,550,000	1,607	$2,209	$104,077,000	6
10	I, Frankenstein	$3,520,000	2,753	$1,279	$14,490,000	2

The indie-produced animated feature The Nut Job continued its modest box office performance as it dropped just 37.1% and earned $7.6 million, bringing its domestic total to $50.2 million, and Peter Berg’s Lone Survivor passed the $100 million mark domestically as it appears to be on its way to becoming the most popular film made yet about America’s 21st Century wars.
 
Paramount’s attempt to reboot its Tom Clancy/Jack Ryan franchise, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit got off to a terrible start, but it has been faring a bit better than expected.  It is third weekend of release the film, which cost $60 million to produce, dropped 40.6% and brought its domestic total to nearly $39 million.  While this is terrible by the standards set by previous Jack Ryan films, the movie is doing a bit better overseas and still has a chance to break even.
 
This week’s other new widely-released film is Jason Reitman’s Labor Day, a romantic drama starring Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin, debuted at #7 with an estimated $5.3 million.  This is the first dramatic film for Reitman, who is better known for his droll "comedies" Juno, Thank You for Smoking and Up in the Air, and the result has to be seen as a disappointing outing for one of the top young directors in the American cinema.  Labor Day, was originally supposed to open in 2013, but was pushed back to this weekend as a sort of Super Bowl counter-programming move, which apparently has worked too well.  Women made up 59% of the opening weekend audience, which skewed much older with 55% of the audience over 35 (with 42% over 50), and the film received a terrible "B-" CinemaScore, which does not bode well for its future prospects.
 
David O. Russell’s American Hustle remains the current audience favorite among Oscar hopefuls.  American Hustle has now surpassed last year’s Silver Linings Playbook to become the highest-grossing film of Russell’s career so far.
 
Kevin Grievoux’s I, Frankenstein confirmed its "Bomb" status, but falling 60% and dropping from #6 to #10 in just its second weekend of release.  Sometimes a “mash-up” of horror themes and creatures is just an unwieldy mess--and such appears to be the case with I, Frankenstein.
 
Check back here next week to learn the fate of The LEGO Movie, which all the analysts are projecting as Hollywood’s top February release, debuts along with another YA novel-based Twilight clone (Vampire Academy) and the George Clooney-directed WWII historical drama The Monuments Men.