Weekend Estimates: Ouija and Nightcrawler Tied at Top
November 2, 2014
Halloween weekend will be fought to the finish at the box office, with newcomer Nightcrawler and horror flick Ouija neck and neck, based on Sunday’s projections. Open Road’s 3-day projected number for Nightcrawler is $10,909,000, which technically gives it the edge over Universal’s $10,900,240 prediction for Ouija, but Ouija as of this morning, so it will all come down to whether Nightcrawler can win Sunday by a large enough margin to steal the race at the end. The tracking we’re seeing suggests that Ouija will just squeak out a win, but it could still go either way.
This weekend’s other new wide openeres are completely out of the picture. Before I Go to Sleep is headed for about $2.025 million from 1,935 theaters for 14th place overall. That’s another major disappointment for fledgling distributor Clarius Entertainment, which is yet to have a $5 million weekend after three attempts this year. If there’s a small consolation in those numbers, they are better than the $650,000 posted by the re-release of Saw in 2,063 theaters.
Among returning films, Gone Girl continues to post good numbers, with $8.8 million projected for this weekend. Its $136.6 million total is now David Fincher’s best at the domestic box office. It will most likely end up his best film worldwide too (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button currently has that title with $329.8 million). Fox’s great year at the domestic box office is also helped by The Maze Runner, which will add another $2.27 million this weekend and looks set to top $100 million.
Birdman is the outstanding film again in limited release this weekend, with a projected $2.51 million from 231 theaters. It’s the only film that will top a $10,000 theater average this weekend, and no other film reporting so far will come close—CitizenFour has the second-best average among films we have numbers for at this time, with a solid $5,676 average based on earning about $210,000 in 37 locations.
Bruce Nash bruce.nash@the-numbers.com-Thumbnail.jpg)
Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Saw, Ouija, The Maze Runner, Before I Go to Sleep, Gone Girl, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Nightcrawler, CitizenFour, David Fincher