November 5, 2013 by Vinnie Leduc
Bestseller sci-fi adaptation Ender’s Game, one of our most anticipated movies of the year, debuted atop the domestic box office last weekend to unseat streak-busting reigning champ Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa. Take that with a grain of salt because although the young adult franchise starter technically opened in first place, its initial take of $27 million is way below those of other young adult literary adaptations that became huge blockbusters, such as The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, and Twilight.
Ender’s first weekend total is also way below those of other big-budget sci-fi flicks from this year, including Oblivion and Pacific Rim. Even notable flop After Earth opened with (barely) higher numbers than Ender’s Game. This doesn’t bode well for the $110 million production’s chances of a sequel, but who knows? We’ve seen less deserving and/or less successful movies get franchised. At least Ender’s Game didn’t do as poorly as the other young adult adaptation bombs from earlier this year, like The Host, Beautiful Creatures, and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.
Jackass spin-off comedy Bad Grandpa dropped into second place in its second weekend and held off the remaining pair of new major releases. Geriatric buddy comedy Last Vegas edged out 3D computer-animated buddy comedy Free Birds by about half a million dollars for third place. Last Vegas scored the second highest debut ever in the history of its studio, CBS Films; it only trailed The Woman in Black, one of the best horror movies of 2012. Free Birds, the first animated movie from studio Reel FX and distributor Relativity Media, cost $55 million to make but crashed with just $15.8 million from its first flight. Alfonso Cuarón’s 3D sci-fi spectacle Gravity rounded out the top five in its fifth weekend.
The upcoming weekend will surely be dominated by the release of more Thor.
Here are the numbers for the top five over the weekend via BOM:
- Ender’s Game — Weekend Gross: $27.0 million — Total Gross: $27.0 million (new)
- Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa — Weekend Gross: $20.0 million — Total Gross: $61.6 million (#1 last week)
- Last Vegas — Weekend Gross: $16.3 million — Total Gross: $16.3 million (new)
- Free Birds — Weekend Gross: $15.8 million — Total Gross: $15.8 million (new)
- Gravity — Weekend Gross: $12.8 million — Total Gross: $218.9 million (#2 last week)
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