Box Office Weekend: Exodus King for Now, But May Abdicate Soon

Director Ridley Scott may be pleased about his Exodus: Gods and Kings is in first place at the box office with an estimated $24.5 million; however, it is an extremely weak start to the $140 million epic (even with overseas box office), and with a critical slamming it cannot compete with the likes of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1. Even at only an estimated $13.2 million in its fourth week, it has managed to become the second highest earning domestic film of the year, second only to Guardians of the Galaxy, and there is reason to believe even that status could be in trouble if Mockingjay – Part 1 continues to press on at the same rate. In the meantime, Penguins of Madagascar, with an estimated $7.3 million, falls well short domestically but continues to do well overseas, doing nearly double the business across the world than it is doing at home…enough to draw a profit on its production costs, anyway.

Chris Rock has been wowing critics and audiences alike with his Top Five, though with an estimated $7.2 million it did not quite compete with the bigger name releases of the week, or even those of previous weeks…Big Hero 6 and Interstellar remain joined at the hip with an estimated $6.1 million and $5.5 million respectively, with Big Hero 6 at a slight edge domestically but Interstellar a massive worldwide hit. Horrible Bosses 2 broke even thanks to an estimated $4.6 million, though maybe the most interesting news is the release of budget information for Dumb and Dumber To. While not as big a hit as the original film, the estimated $2.8 million weekend turned out to add a little flesh to a successful venture, as the $40 million budget was nearly matched in its first weekend of release. As it stands, it has made back over double that with $82.1 million.

Finally, The Theory of Everything held up well enough for releasing company Focus Features, bringing in an estimated $2.5 million at the box office over the weekend, enough to gain a marginal profit against a $15 million budget…and still ahead of the critically acclaimed Wild, the Reese Witherspoon-starring film based on the memoir of Cheryl Strayed, which picked up a few theaters and some revenue in the form of an estimated $1.6 million.

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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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