1. Ender's Game- $28M
It looks like any planned boycotts of Ender's Game because of author Orson Scott Card's radical political views failed to have much of a lasting impact. The adaptation of his classic sci-fi novel, in the works for years, opened to $28M which is pretty good considering early projections and some strong genre competition. The film lacked considerable star power outside of Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley, and promos resembled a fairly straight forward sci-fi adventure geared towards young adults, peddling it as a sort of modern version of The Last Starfighter. That may have been a hindrance to those more familiar with the complexities of the source material, while at the same time it doesn't fit neatly into the YA fiction realm. So there may have been more money to be made here with a smarter marketing campaign, but the 'B+' Cinemascore suggests those who did turn out were generally happy. The bigger problem is that Thor: The Dark World opens domestically next week and will likely eat up most of its audience, meaning it may be touch to recoup the $110M production budget.
2. Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa- $20.5M/$62M
Proving that those Jackass guys are more savvy than their antics suggests, spinoff comedy Bad Grandpa dipped a shockingly low 36% from last week and has a pretty good shot at besting Jackass 3D's $117M domestic haul.
3. Last Vegas- $16.5M
Sin City-set comedies are apparently funny and lucrative no matter what age group they're tailored to. Last Vegas, which features the powerhouse quartet of Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, and Kevin Kline emulating The Hangover in just about every way, opened to a strong $16.5M. Wisely, the film only cost about $28M, and with audiences giving it an 'A-' Cinemascore it should have legs enough to recoup that and much more over the holiday season.
4. Free Birds- $16.2M
Taking advantage of the Thanksgiving season and the lack of animated family films, Free Birds wasn't a total turkey. The $55M film should play well for the next few weeks until Disney's Frozen come along and freezes it out completely.
5. Gravity- $13.1M/$219.1M
6. Captain Phillips- $8.5M/$82.5M
7. 12 Years a Slave- $4.6M/$8.7M
8. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2- $4.2M/$106.1M
9. Carrie- $3.4M/$31.9M
10. The Counselor- $3.2M/$13.3M
The big rollout of the week was the $109M overseas debut for Marvel's Thor: The Dark World. In the wake of The Avengers, Marvel has seen a significant box office uptick. The first Thor film finished out with roughly $450M with $181M of that in foreign grosses, so the sequel is well on its way to surpassing those numbers.
