Box Office Results: October 4-6

Alfonso Cuaron’s space thriller Gravity starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney has captured the attention of moviegoers and earned the title of best October opening of all time. The record was previously held by Paranormal Activity 3 with $52.5 million.

Defying even the high end of expectations, the pic grossed a terrific $55.6 million – well above my $38.7M prediction. With an A- Cinemascore grade, Gravity looks to have a healthy run in coming weeks and could stay #1 for at least one more weekend. The impressive opening is also a career-best for Bullock as her previous highest was this summer’s The Heat with $39.1 million. And it’s the best opening for Clooney, too – above the $42.8 million for (sadly) 1997’s Batman and Robin.

As expected, last weekend’s champ Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 fell to second place with $21.5 million – right on target with my $21.8M projection.

The noise made by Gravity unquestionably affected other films marketed towards adults… and in negative fashion. The weekend’s other newbie Runner Runner with Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck failed to connect with a weak $7.6 million debut, below my $10.9M estimate. The pic ends the magical 2013 run of Timberlake, who’s been having a banner year on the music charts.

Rounding out the top five, Prisoners took fourth with $5.7 million (just below my $6.2M projection) while Ron Howard’s Rush fell further than I figured it would in its second weekend with only $4.4 million (I said $6.1M). While the Formula One racing pic was a hit with critics, audiences are clearly ambivalent.

At press time, numbers were not available for Metallica Through the Never, which I predicted would gross $2.8 million. I’ll update those numbers when I have them.

**Update: Metallica Through the Never managed only $682,000, well below my estimate. It seems the pic (marketed as an IMAX release) lost a lot of screens due to… you guessed it, Gravity.

Be sure to check the blog later today for individual predictions on next weekend’s openers, Captain Phillips with Tom Hanks and Robert Rodriguez’s sequel Machete Kills.