Box Office Weekend: Audiences Taken for a Third Time

Critics may have been very much unimpressed with the Liam Neeson-helmed Taken 3, but audiences made the latest in the action-thriller franchise a box office hit over the weekend. With an estimated $40.4 million, nothing else came close, even the acclaimed Selma, which entered wide release this week and earned an estimated $11.2 million. Still, both films made strong bids against their production costs, though neither is yet as successful as Into the Woods, which broke $100 million in domestic revenue with an estimated $9.8 million or The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies, which finally lost its first-place perch with an estimated $9.4 million but has since taken in $236.5 million in domestic revenue.

Unbroken also turned into a winner, with third weekend revenue of an estimated $8.4 million enough to break the $100 million line, while The Imitation Game garnered an estimated $7.6 million (though whether the Weinstein Company biopic is a success depends on whether its $40.8 million in domestic revenue is more than its unreported budget), but Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb and its estimated $6.7 million is still a domestic flop, even if international ticket sales have helped it by a considerable margin.

Annie is a mild success with the addition of an estimated $4.9 million, while The Woman in Black 2: The Angel of Death took a major tumble from opening weekend with an estimated $4.8 million, though it has failed to report its budget (not surprisingly, as its predecessor did not, either). Finally, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 still continues to try and dethrone Guardians of the Galaxy as the 2014 top earner, and made a good try with an estimated $3.8 million, though whichever way it turns out it will be a very close race.

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Seth Paul

When not failing to write novels and screenplays, box-office guru Seth writes humorous comedy tracks for films under the name "The One Man Band" that can be found at Rifftrax.com. Although, he has recently succeeded in writing the novella "Jack Alan and the Case of the Not-Exactly Rocket Scientists," available as an eBook on Amazon. He is also the English voice of Zak in "Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space."

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