Weekend Box Office: Gone Girl wins again, according to site we’re glad still exists
As widely expected, Gone Girl held onto the No. 1 position this weekend, crossing $75 million with another $26 million in admissions. But the big box-office news of the last three days, at least for those who study and write about such matters, concerned not the numbers, but those who usually report them: Box Office Mojo, everyone’s favorite destination for ticket-sale information (and the primary research source for this weekly report) went dark on Friday night, its URL redirecting visitors to parent site IMDb. After a few hours of speculation about the future of this industry institution, the site suddenly reappeared on Saturday night, but without the usual analytical articles that typically accompany its raw data. Whether or not Box Office Mojo will permanently adopt this stripped-down version of itself remains to be seen; editor Ray Subers has said, via Twitter, that he will not be answering any questions about the temporary blackout or what it means for the site’s future. But really, we’re just grateful it still exists in any form. We need Box Office Mojo as much as any term-paper-writing college student needs Wikipedia.
But back to the numbers (also reported on by The Numbers, one of Box Office Mojo’s competitors). Gone Girl, an admirably adult hit, just barely edged out its nearest competition, the very not-adult Dracula Untold. The first installment in Universal’s monster reboot plan didn’t exactly position old Vlad as the Iron Man anchor of a future mega-franchise. But the film still did better than expected, posting $23.4 million—possibly thanks to patronage from horror fans surely disappointed by the utter lack of horror in the Dracula movie they paid to see.
A third literary adaptation, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, landed in third place with $19.1 million—also not a stellar intake, but plenty for a movie that probably cost than the fake-fang budget of Dracula Untold. And speaking of Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. vehicle The Judge debuted to a very modest $13.3 million; that number would surely be higher if the film was based on a John Grisham novel, which, inexplicably, it is not.
In a crowded week for new releases, the sex-lit adaptation Addicted—which didn’t screen for critics, so we’re reviewing this week—took home $7.6 million from moviegoers who can’t wait until next year’s Fifty Shades Of Grey to get hot and bothered at a mall multiplex. As far as the indies go, the documentary Meet The Mormons made a very divine $2.7 million on just 317 screens—much better than the $939,000 Kill The Messenger took home at about 60 more venues. Further down the charts, Whiplash ($144,000 on six screens) and St. Vincent ($121,000 on four screens) scored a victory for small films about unconventional mentor figures.
For more detailed numbers—but, alas, not the usual in-depth analysis of said numbers—visit Box Office Mojo.