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Box Office Weekend: The Martian Conquers the Box Office

Seth Paul
Box Office Weekend

While not the horror movie the title conjures up, October began with a strong start thanks to The Martian. With an estimated $55 million, director Ridley Scott and Matt Damon have been earning high marks from critics and audiences, though it will probably need a few more weekends like this if it hopes to make back its $108 million in costs. In fact, very little in release conjures up the spooks and scares typical of this time of year, with Hotel Transylvania 2 being the only thing even close. With an estimated $33 million weekend, the undisclosed budget may not be much of a problem, as the film has grossed $150.3 million worldwide. However, bigger budgets are netting smaller returns, as even the very The Martianacclaimed Sicario (estimated $12.1 million) opened to wide release and has so far pulled in only $15.1 million against a $30 million budget. In fact, only three films on the list with listed budgets have been successes without counting worldwide take, but more on those later.

The Intern brought in an estimated $11.6 million, but whose $36.5 million in gross is no indicator of how well it is actually doing. Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (estimated $7.7 million) is doing a marvelous job overseas, but with a domestic haul of $63.2 million it looks iffy on paper here. Seventh-place finisher Everest is also making up its domestic shortfall with foreign dollars, as an estimated $5.5 million has added to $136.5 million in worldwide gross. Black Mass, on the other hand, with an estimated $5.9 million, has no real foreign dollars to speak of, and despite good reviews is a long way from breaking even on its $53 million costs.

At the bottom, things are really looking up for the micro-budgeted, critically well received or not. With the only other “horror” film in the list, M. Night Shayamalan is piling up the dollars for The Visit, which made an estimated $4 million on the weekend and has made back well over ten times its $5 million costs. War Room has done even better, an estimated $2.8 million adding up to a domestic box office of $60.5 million on a $3 million budget. And while it may have smaller profit margins than the other two, there is no way of saying The Perfect Guy is not a hit; an estimated $2.4 million has brought in $52.6 million on a $12 million budget.

Weekend Box Office (October 2nd – October 4th)

  1. The Martian…$55 million
  2. Hotel Transylvania 2…$33 million
  3. Sicario…$12.1 million
  4. The Intern…$11.6 million
  5. Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials…$7.7 million
  6. Black Mass…$5.9 million
  7. Everest…$5.5 million
  8. The Visit…$4 million
  9. War Room…$2.8 million
  10. The Perfect Guy…$2.4 million

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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