When was the last time we had a big Hollywood war movie? It's been awhile, and apparently audiences were eager to see Brad Pitt in an R-rated war flick like Fury, as the film opened with $23.5M, basically hitting all the projections. While the $68M movie was largely sold on Brad Pitt back on a war footing for the first time since Inglourious Basterds, the strong debut is also a feather in the cap of David Ayer, the director best known for cop dramas like End of Watch and Sabotage. As he pushes ahead to direct the DC Comics adaptation Suicide Squad, this should go a long way in establishing him as a director capable of painting on a larger canvas.
2. Gone Girl- $17.8M/$107M
Another solid hold for David Fincher's Gone Girl, moving past the $100M in week 3 and totally $181M worldwide. And just as it hurt the chances of success for The Judge last week, I think it may have done the same to The Best of Me's debut. More on that later.
3. The Book of Life- $17M
For my money the best animated film of the year, 20th Century Fox's Latin-themed The Book of Life opened strong with $17M. The $50M film had the backing of producer Guillermo Del Toro, and a number of popular celebrity voices in Channing Tatum, Zoe Saldana, Ice Cube, and Diego Luna, along with many popular Mexican entertainers. It's been a strong year for movies geared at Latin audiences and The Book of Life is just the latest example, but it also saw benefit from an ad campaign that emphasized how different it was from the familiar projects by other studios. Sometimes audiences do reward movies that dare to be different.
4. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day- $12M/$36.8M
5. The Best of Me- $10.2M
Opening with a scant $10.2M was The Best of Me, the latest melodramatic romance adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel. This is actually the ninth film based on the author's work, and it's also the lowest-debuting of the bunch, which hopefully means people are getting tired of them because they're all telling the same story but with different white people. And yeah, that is a factor in today's multicultural society where diversity is seen as a virtue; Sparks' films seem antiquated by comparison. I hesitate to blame stars Michelle Monaghan and James Marsden because Sparks adaptations have never needed big stars to be a hit. Josh Duhamel and Julianne Hough starred in Safe Haven and that nearly broke $100M. The bigger problem may be competition, with Gone Girl locking down much of the "date night" audience. Whether this is the start of a trend we'll find out soon enough because two Sparks adaptations are on the way in The Longest Ride and The Choice, both with essentially the same plot. Ugh.
6. Dracula Untold- $9.8M/$40.7M
7. The Judge- $7.94M/$26.8M
8. Annabelle- $7.92M/$74.1M
9. The Equalizer- $5.4M/$89.1M
10. The Maze Runner- $4.5M/$90.8M
Opening in limited release were two of this season's most anticipated films. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's meta-comedy Birdman opened in four theaters and banked $415K, while Justin Simien's satire on race, Dear White People, made $344K at only 11 locations. Not bad for both, and they'll likely keep up the pace upon expansion in the next few weeks.
