The dark kidnapping drama Prisoners captured the weekend box office crown with an estimated $21.4 million.  The R-rated thriller, which has Oscar possibilities, stars Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal.  Prisoners easily topped what turned into a slow frame that was 4.6% lower than the same weekend last year when the grim cop drama End of Watch debuted with $13.1 million.  The only record set this weekend was of the "dubious distinction" variety as Chris Brown’s 3-D dance film Battle of the Year debuted with the lowest total ever for a dance film.
 
The audience for Prisoners looked like the typical audience for the "adult" Oscar-worthy sort of film that makes it appearance in the fall after hibernating through the action movie-dominated summer season.  It skewed a bit female (52%) and a lot older (72% over 25, with 26% over 50).  Critics loved Prisoners, giving it a 78% positive rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, and audiences apparently did as well as the Saturday crowds, which gave the film a solid "A-" CinemaScore.
 

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): September 20-22, 2013
	Film	Weekend Gross	Screens	Avg./ Screen	Total Gross	Wk#
1	Prisoners	$21,430,000	3,260	$6,574	$21,430,000	1
2	Insidious Chapter 2	$14,500,000	3,155	$4,596	$60,855,000	2
3	The Family	$7,000,000	3,091	$2,265	$25,641,000	3
4	Instructions Not Included	$5,700,000	978	$5,828	$34,262,000	4
5	Battle of the Year	$5,000,000	2,008	$2,490	$5,000,000	5
6	We're the Millers	$4,670,000	3,003	$1,555	$138,176,000	6
7	Lee Daniels' The Butler	$4,304,000	2,931	$1,468	$106,452,000	7
8	Riddick	$3,672,000	3,022	$1,215	$37,180,000	8
9	The Wizard of Oz (3D/IMAX)	$3,022,000	318	$9,503	$3,022,000	9
10	Planes	$2,861,000	2,446	$1,170	$86,543,000	10

The horror movie Insidious 2 dropped 64% in its second frame, but still managed to earn $14.5 million and bring its ten-day domestic total to $60.9 million.  Drops of more than 60% have become commonplace for heavily-hyped action films and high-concept horror movies, so the question becomes "60% of what?"  Insidious 2 opened big enough that it could drop 64% and still come in a solid #2 in its second weekend.
 
Luc Besson’s black comedy The Family stabilized a bit as it dropped just 50% and earned $7 million in its second weekend.  The $30 million production has already earned $25.6 million domestically.  Meanwhile the Spanish language film Instructions Not Included added 45 theaters and actually posted a 17% increase over last weekend.  This week Instructions should pass Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth to become the fourth highest grossing foreign language of all time here in the U.S.
 
This week’s "bomb" was the Chris Brown 3-D dance movie Battle of the Year, which earned just $5 million despite opening in more than 2000 theaters.  Battle of the Year posted the lowest opening ever for a dance film, even lower than the legendary disaster Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, which opened with $5.8 million in 2004.
 
Meanwhile the "R-rated" pot-smuggling comedy We’re the Millers continues to impress, dropping just 13.6% in its seventh weekend in theaters, the lowest 7th week decline of any film in Warner Bros. history.
 
The third “new” film of the weekend was a new 3-D version of the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz, which opened in just 318 IMAX theaters but still earned enough ($3 million) to come in ninth for the weekend, though it should be noted that the vintage Oz movie posted what was by far the best per-theater average in the top ten ($9,503).
 
Check back next week to see if Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Don Jon or the highly-anticipated animated sequel Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 can top the weekend box office.