Fox’s adaptation of the dystopian YA novel Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials failed to “scorch” the weekend box office, but it did easily top the charts with an estimated $30.3 million, two million less than the first Maze Runner film which won the box office this weekend last year with $32.5 million.  But the Johnny Depp-starring crime film Black Mass also posted a solid debut with $23.4 million, while Universal successfully launched its mountain-climbing film Everest at 545 large screen format theaters, and the three newcomers helped power the box office to an 8% gain over the same weekend last year when the first Maze Runner film debuted.

While The Scorch Trials opened a little behind the first Maze Runner film, the sequel took the foreign box office crown with $43.8 million for an overseas total of $78 million (it opened in a number of territories last week).  It appears that growing overseas earnings will more than erase any domestic deficit.  U.S. audiences gave Scorch Trials a “B+” CinemaScore (down slightly from the first film’s “A-“), so it remains to be seen if Scorch Trials will catch its predecessor here in North America.  As might be expected for a YA novel adaptation, the audience for Scorch Trials skewed young (63% under 25) with females making up 53% of the audience, slightly more than the first Maze Runner adaptation, but this franchise is still more gender-balanced than some of the other YA adaptations like Divergent or (more drastically) The Twilight Saga.

Black Mass, an “R-rated” crime film based on the life of Boston gangster Whitey Bolger starring Johnny Depp, debuted with $23.4 million, and Warner Bros. is hoping that, thanks to Depp’s star power and the intensity of his performance, Black Mass will have a lengthy theatrical run like Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, though it should be noted that The Departed had a $26.8 million opening (and that’s in 2006 dollars), and a considerably better CinemaScore than Black Mass’s disappointing “B.”  Still Black Mass has been a hit with the critics (76% positive on Rotten Tomatoes), and should continue to appeal to older audiences.  Opening weekend audiences were definitely on the geriatric side with 90% over 25 and 40% over 50—and as might be expected from a gangster film, the film skewed masculine (56%).

M. Knight Shyamalan’s horror film The Visit, slipped 55%, which is not a bad second weekend fall for a horror movie, to finish in third place, while last week’s winner the urban thriller The Perfect Guy slipped 62.8% and finished in fourth.

Fifth place went to Everest, Balthasar Kormakur’s epic mountain climbing/disaster film, which is based on a real incident in 1996, when a storm trapped dozens of climbers on the world’s highest peak.  Opening in just 545 theaters, Everest, which goes wide next week, averaged a muscular $13,867, and managed to set a new IMAX September record.

The Christian-themed drama War Room continued its strong run, earning $6.3 million to bring its domestic total to $49 million, and its continued success eclipsed the debut of Captive, a true life drama about a woman who used a book by a prominent Christian pastor to convince her captor to give himself up, which opened in 809 theaters and earned just $1.5 million.

Two films that opened in limited release bear watching, especially the well-reviewed thriller Sicario starring Emily Blunt, which averaged $65,000 per venue (the best showing for any film in limited release so far this year).  Behaving more like a conventional fall season art movie, the Bobby Fisher chess movie Pawn Sacrifice averaged $6,239 from 33 theaters.

Be sure to check back here next week to see how three new films open, the animated Hotel Transylvania 2, The Intern, which stars Anne Hathaway and Robert DeNiro, and Eli (The Saw) Roth’s oft-delayed cannibalism-themed horror film The Green Inferno.