Thor: The Dark World topped the box office for a second weekend as it earned an estimated $38.4 million and brought its domestic total to a substantial $150 million.  The comedy sequel Best Man Holiday posted a strong debut with an estimated $30.6 million, and most of the holdovers suffered relatively small declines.  But, at this time of year especially, hits matter, and the lack of a new monster debut meant that the box office was down a whopping 49.1% from the same frame last year when Twilight Saga finale Breaking Dawn Part 2 debuted with $141 million.
 
Alan Taylor’s Thor: The Dark World dropped 55% from its opening weekend, which has to count as a "pretty good hold" in an era in which heavily-promoted action movie tentpoles typically drop by 60% or more in their second weekends.  The Thor sequel managed a solid $10,011 per venue average, and would appear to have a good chance to wind up with more than $200 million domestically, though it will face major competition next week with the debut of the second Hunger Games film.
 
Disney opened Thor: The Dark World a week earlier overseas and the film continues to roll up impressive grosses outside the U.S., adding an additional $52.5 million this weekend, which brings its overseas total to $332.8 million so far, well ahead of the first Thor film ($268 million).  With its current global take of $479.8 million, it would appear that the film has a chance to top the $700 million mark worldwide.  The first Thor film earned $449 during its box office tenure, so the improvement in the performance of The Dark World, which analysts attribute to the “Avengers effect,” would appear to be quite substantial.

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): November 15-17, 2013
	Film	Weekend Gross	Screens	Avg./ Screen	Total Gross	Wk#
1	Thor: The Dark World	$38,454,000	3,841	$10,011	$146,965,000	2
2	The Best Man Holiday	$30,593,000	2,024	$15,115	$30,593,000	1
3	Last Vegas	$8,850,000	3,237	$2,734	$46,958,000	3
4	Free Birds	$8,300,000	3,510	$2,365	$42,218,000	3
5	Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa	$7,670,000	3,190	$2,404	$90,202,000	4
6	Gravity	$6,280,000	2,560	$2,453	$240,556,000	7
7	Ender's Game	$6,200,000	3,236	$1,916	$53,777,000	3
8	12 Years a Slave	$4,700,000	1,411	$3,331	$24,949,000	5
9	Captain Phillips	$4,500,000	2,626	$1,714	$97,617,000	6
10	About Time	$3,462,000	1,280	$2,705	$11,568,000	3

The biggest surprise of the weekend wasn’t the relatively strong hold of Thor: The Dark World, it was the dynamite debut of The Best Man Holiday that really turned heads.  Opening 15 years after 1998’s original The Best Man, which was also written by Malcolm D. Lee, The Best Man Holiday reunited the talented cast of the original in a new film that has a strong appeal to African Americans, who made up 87% of the film’s opening weekend audiences.  Females (75%) dominated the opening weekend crowds for the aspirational comedy that earned a stellar "A+" CinemaScore.  The effect of the film’s solid word-of-mouth (or these days, "strong Twitter posts") can be seen in the film’s 15% jump from Friday to Saturday night grosses.  Look for The Best Man Holiday to stay around for a while, and for Universal to generate another sequel in far fewer than 15 years.
 
Meanwhile the geriatric comedy Last Vegas continues to draw older viewers back to the theaters.  The film dropped just 19.8% and moved up from fourth last weekend to third as it earned an additional $8.85 million, bringing its domestic total to $47 million.  Relativity’s animated feature Free Birds fell just 25.3% as it earned $8.3 million to bring its total to $42.2 million.  Unfortunately small drops from already small grosses won’t do it for this $55 million feature, which has relatively slim prospects overseas.  So far Free Birds hasn’t had much competition in the "family film" genre, but that will change when Disney’s animated feature Frozen debuts on November 27th.
 
Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa continues to demonstrate better “legs” than previous Jackass movies, as it dropped just 32.3%, earning $7.6 million and bringing its total to $90 million.  Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity remains far and away the best moneymaker among Oscar contenders.  After seven weeks in the top ten, the movie has now earned $240.5 million domestically, a total that even Thor: The Dark World is unlikely to match.
 
The prospects are not nearly so bright for the big screen adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, which dropped 39.6% in its third weekend as it earned $6.2 million and brought its domestic total to $53.8 million.  With only limited earnings overseas so far ($9.2 million), this $110 million production, which Lionsgate hoped to turn into a franchise, appears to be yet another failed attempt to create a Y.A.-based franchise to rival Twilight, The Hunger Games, and Harry Potter.
 
Oscar contender 12 Years a Slave suffered its biggest decline yet (almost 30%), which was probably the result of the powerful debut of The Best Man Holiday, but Steve McQueen’s film still appears poised to remain on the charts for weeks to come with the third best per-venue average in the top ten.  The Tom Hanks-starring Captain Phillips on the other hand appears closer to the end of its initial run (it could come back if it wins any major awards), but it will finish its solid run with more than $100 million domestically.
 
Richard Curtis’ Britcom About Time expanded a bit to 1,280 theaters and also posted one of the better per venue averages.  Dear Mr. Watterson, a documentary about the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, opened in just four theaters and did only modest business.  Like most documentaries it will have to do the majority of its damage on disc.
 
Check back here next week to survey the carnage in the wake of the debut of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, one of the most eagerly awaited films of the year.