Movies

Box Office: ‘Ouija’ Scares Up First Place Debut, ‘John Wick’ Nails Second

ouija+trailer

Regardless of how awful word of mouth and critic reviews are, horror movies will always do at least modestly well in the month of October. Coupled with only one other major wide release and Universal’s Ouija managed to take first place with an estimated $20 million.

The board game adaptation featured an overwhelmingly young, 25-and-under audience (75%) with 61% of them female. It’s worth noting that 40% of the audience was made up of Hispanic moviegoers.

Second place went to the Keanu Reeves action revenge flick John Wick. The film made $14.15 million with $2.5 million coming from IMAX screenings. As expected, the audience skewed male (60%) and older (77% over 25).

Defending box office champ Fury tumbled down to third, falling off 45% from its opening weekend with $13 million.  In fourth, Gone Girl added $11.1 million to its $124.1 million domestic total. Rounding out the top five was The Book of Life with $9.8 million, a steep 42% drop off from its prior week.

After two weeks in limited release, St. Vincent starring Bill Murray expanded nationwide and earned $8.06 million, good enough for sixth.

Rounding out the top ten were Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day with $7 million, The Best of Me with $4.74 million, WB’s The Judge with $4.35 million and Universal’s Dracula Untold with $4.3 million.

Internationally, Annabelle scared up first place with a $26.5 million cumulative total. The film opened with a monster $11.7 million in Mexico, the biggest debut for a horror movie and third behind Spider-Man and Transformers this year.

Lucy opened to a strong $19 million in China. The Luc Besson thriller starring Scarlett Johansson has taken in a stunning $307.6 million in the international market and $434 million worldwide.

Speaking of strong performers, Guardians of the Galaxy continued its strong performance in China where it has now earned $84.4 million. The film has now become the highest grossing superhero movie of the year with $752.6 million. It is expected to move past Maleficent sometime this week to become the second highest grossing movie of the year behind Transformers: Age of Extinction.

The other upcoming Disney/Marvel collaboration got off to a strong start with Big Hero 6 opening to $4.8 million in Russia. That total is ahead of Wreck-It Ralph and about on par with Tangled which ended up making just under $600 million worldwide.

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