As expected, GONE GIRL (20th) flew past DRACULA UNTOLD (Legendary/Universal) on Saturday and based on preliminary numbers at Deadline, it will easily take the weekend. Gone Girl‘s $11.4M Saturday was down just 25% from the week before, and it should have a superb $27.5M 2d weekend, down a mere 27% from its debut. That’s the best Weekend 2 retention any #1 movie has had since The LEGO Movie in February–and that one had Presidents Day for its 2d weekend, a much bigger holiday than Columbus Day. Gone Girl will be over $75M by Sunday, and that 10-day total is far ahead of such hit adult dramas as Argo ($43M), The Town ($48.7M), The Social Network ($46M), and The Departed ($57M) at the same point in their runs. In addition, it has a strong chance of moving past the $127.5M earned by The Curious Case of Benjamin Button to become David Fincher’s biggest US hit.
Dracula Untold didn’t fare badly, reporting a tiny 2% Saturday drop to $8.7M (that compares to a 10% drop last Saturday for Annabelle), which should give it a $23M weekend, not the equal of Annabelle‘s $37.1M last week, but still one of the stronger horror movie openings of the year, more than doubling the $8.6M start for January’s I, Frankenstein. (However, it was also considerably more expensive than produce than most horror movies.) The more important numbers for Dracula will be the overseas results that will be available tomorrow.
ALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY (Disney) had its Saturday matinee bump, up 60% from Friday to $8.4M and what should be a tidy $18-19M weekend. Alexander‘s bad day may come next weekend, when it will have to face the animated Book of Life.
THE JUDGE (Warners), aimed at older audiences, had a solid 25% Saturday bump, but that still only got it to $5.5M, and a likely $13M weekend. That’s only slightly ahead of the $11.6M start for the less expensive This Is Where I Leave You, and more was expected of The Judge with Robert Downey, Jr heading the cast.
ANNABELLE (Warners) had about a 58% Saturday-to-Saturday drop to $6M, and it’ll be down 60% for the weekend to $15M, in line with the typical horror movie pattern (although last year’s The Conjuring, which spawned Annabelle, broke that pattern with a relatively small 47% Weekend 2 decline).
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