Box Office Weekend: Captain Phillips Sails a Steady Ship but Gravity Holds It Down

Captain Phillips is the new critical darling, receiving almost unanimously excellent reviews, and a strong opening weekend with an estimated $26 million. However, its performance was not good enough to keep Gravity from snagging the top spot once again with an estimated $44.3 million. Alfonso Cuarón has entered its second week not only profitable, but having broken $100 million in box office gross. With the loss of Lee Daniels’ The Butler and We’re the Millers, it is now the only movie in the top ten to have triple digits in domestic earnings. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, with an estimated $14.2 million, did not yet make triple digits, but it managed to make back its costs in its third week…though considering it is the only family film currently in wide release, its box office cannot help but be a little disappointing.

But there are films in far bigger disappointment territory. Machete Kills opened to poor reviews and horrendous box office numbers, earning only an estimated $3.8 million in its opening weekend. It did only slightly better than Runner Runner, but that film is in its second weekend, so its estimated $3.7 million does not look quite as bad in comparison…however, the fact that Runner Runner has still only made half of its costs is not a good omen for either film.

The bottom half of the top ten, due to the slow take of the weekend, saw little changes. Prisoners came in just under an estimated $3.7 million, but has managed to be profitable; Insidious: Chapter 2 moved up the list but still dropped in revenue with an estimated $2.7 million, though it has long since been a big hit for studio FilmDistrict with $78.4 million in domestic gross. Rush still struggles to succeed despite its reviews with an estimated $2.4 million. Don Jon is nowhere near the revenue of Insidious: Chapter 2, but it still managed to be profitable in three weeks despite only an estimated $2.3 million in the weekend. Finally, Baggage Claim to seems to be destined for bad things, its estimated $2.1 million giving it only $18.3 million in three weeks of effort, though still on better ground than Machete Kills, regardless of the fact that neither film has officially released their costs.

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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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