The Weekend Report

Despite considerable heat from new releases, Gone Girl held onto the top spot for the current frame with an estimated $26.8 million. Four new films entered the marketplace with Dracula Untold coming closest with $23.4 million. The remaining trio included family-friendly Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day that grossed $18.9 million, courtroom/bedroom drama The Judge at $13.3 million and the steamy Addicted fogging up an impressive $7.5 million.

In limited wide release Meet the Mormons played extremely well to believers with a $3.2 million opener while ripped-from-headlines Kill the Messenger managed to smuggle $920,000.

Exclusive bows ranged from out-of-luck One Chance, which streamed for free on Yahoo! Movies last week, with a $33,100 tally at 43 venues to the decidedly on-tempo Whiplash with a $138,000 box office from six  gigs and a potent $119,000 for the curmudgeonly St. Vincent at only four locations.

Also of note was the two-day $3.2 million tally for the concert film One Direction: Where We Are Now.

Revenues for the session surpassed $152 million that provided a 2% bump from seven days back. It was an impressive 31% boost from 2013 when the second weekend of Gravity prevailed with $43.2 million with the bow of Captain Phillips on deck with $25.7 million.

Gone Girl was expected to lead weekend sales though Dracula Untold clearly built interest in the days leading up to release. Tracking pundits were predicting the Impaler would debut between $20 million and $22 million and trail the leader by several million dollars. Most of this week’s estimations also appear to have underestimated the impact of Canadian Thanksgiving.

Dracula Untold got a jump start on domestic with a hefty $21 million box office in 25 territories. Its domestic bow also got a boost from IMAX and other “Premium Large Screens” that accounted for roughly 27% of its business. The film skewed male at 57% with an audience that was 61% aged 25-years and older.

Also weighing in above expectations was Alexander…, based on a kidlit fave, that most pundits saw trailing The Judge with a $15 million opener. Studio exit polls identified the crowd as 67% families with a 54% female tilt. The audience was 56% aged 25-years and younger.

While tracking was far from enthusiastic for The Judge, its star power was perceived to translate into a $16 million to $18 million box office launch. It also skewed female with 55% of the audience but wound up with a very high older crowd that was 85% aged 25-years and older.

The biggest surprise was clearly Addicted that many were skeptical would even draw strongly from a targeted Afro-American audience and was given no more than a $5 million bow from industry analysts. The audience was significantly urban at 72% per its distributor and 82% female and skewing oldish.

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