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Monday October 13, 2014

Weekend Box Office: ‘Gone Girl’ Returns at No. 1

Eleven movies opened this weekend, but the second weekend of David Fincher’s trashy, campy “Gone Girl” trumped them all, dropping only 28% and finishing first with $26.8 million. (Review up soon.)

Since the movie stars Ben Affleck, and since the pet project of Robert Downey, Jr., “The Judge,” finished fifth with only $13.3 million, is this a matter of new Batman beating the one and only Iron Man? Is it DC beating Marvel? Or is it DC beating DC, since the new Batman also beat the oldest Batman, “Dracula Untold,” the No. 2 movie with $23.4 million—which used, in its marketing, not-so-subtle bat imagery to conflate itself with the Dark Knight? Either way, people weren’t fooled by “Dracula.” Not enough anyway.

Meanwhile, Steve Carrell’s new kids movie, “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,” based on the 1972 kids book by Judith Viorst, opened in third place with $19.1 million.

And wait ... 11 movies, you ask? Yes, 11 movies. But many of them, the best of them, didn’t open at a theater near you. “Kill the Messenger,” Jeremy Renner’s true life, investigative reporter/CIA/cocaine movie, got buried by Focus Features, opening in only 374 theaters. “St. Vincent,” Bill Murray’s Wes Andersony “About a Boy” flick, is being treated, in A.O. Scott’s immortal words, “like a hothouse flower,” and only opened in four theaters. “Whiplash,” the jazz drummer movie starring Miles Teller that is garnering great reviews, did only slightly better: six theaters.

Hollywood is playing this story again. The movies you want to see are being parceled out like caviar in New York and LA, while the movies you don’t want to see are as readily available as McDonald’s franchises throughout the rest of the schlubby U.S.

Here, in fact, are the 11 movies that opened this weekend, sorted by theater count, with Rotten Tomatoes’ scores in the right-hand column:

Movie Theaters BO RT Rating
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, Etc.  3,088 $19.10 66%
The Judge 3,003 $13.33 47%
Dracula Untold 2,885 $23.46 26%
Addicted 846 $7.60 11%
Kill the Messenger 374 $0.93 73%
Meet the Mormons 317 $2.70 0%
One Chance 43 $0.03 64%
Christian Mingle 15 $0.02 33%
Whiplash 6 $0.14 96%
St. Vincent 4 $0.12 66%
The Overnighters 1 $0.004 95%

It’s almost as if studios are embarrassed by anything that’s well-reviewed.

Dracula Untold poster: straight out of Batman Begins

'Noooo, we're not trying to remind you of a more successful bat-franchise. What gave you that idea?'

Posted at 06:46 AM on Monday October 13, 2014 in category Movies - Box Office