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When Madea Scared Jack

Projections can be scary things. Just ask Jack Reacher.

You see, many prognosticators had forecast Tom Cruise’s latest, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, as the prohibitive favorite to win the weekend’s box office battle. But they underestimated the magnetic appeal of a certain moo moo-wearing movie matriarch: Madea.

Tyler Perry’s no-nonsense, wisdom-and-vulgarity spouting alter ego startled up an estimated $27.6 million with Boo! A Madea Halloween. That was more than enough to scare off Jack Reacher: Never Go Back. Cruise’s paint-by-numbers sequel—which Plugged In’s Paul Asay described as being “exactly what we’d expect in a PG-13 actioner”—pulled in an estimated $23 million.

Another sequel, the Halloween horror flick Ouija: Origin of Evil, was the weekend’s other new release to land in the box office’s upper echelon, taking in $14.1 million—good enough to claim a bronze.

Holdovers thrillers The Accountant and The Girl on the Train rounded out the top five, with the former banking another $14 million and the latter riding off with $7.3 million.

Meanwhile, Keeping Up With the Joneses, the other new wide release, couldn’t keep up with much of anyone. The Zach Galifianakis comedy clocked in at No. 7 with a not very enviable $5.6 million despite its presence in more than 3,000 theaters nationwide. Deadline writer Anthony D’Alessandro says that anemic figure constitutes “one of the lowest debuts for a saturated theater count of that size.”

Meanwhile, the Christian film I’m Not Ashamed, which tells the tragic-but-inspiring story of Columbine victim Rachel Joy Scott, landed in the No. 16 slot with an estimated $900,000 from 505 theaters.

Final figures will be added when they become available later today.