Forget Gone Girl. For execs over at Fox, their R-rated mystery thriller might’ve been called Here Cash.
Gone Girl, starring Ben Affleck as his wife’s possible killer/victim, buzzed its way to an estimated $38 million weekend—a pretty big figure for the normally dowdy month of October. It’s also the biggest opening for a David Fincher-directed film ever and Affleck’s biggest opening since he strapped on some spandex for Daredevil back in 2003.
But perhaps the movie was just trying to put some distance between it and Annabelle, the other 3,000+ theater release this weekend. I mean, who wouldn’t? Have you seen that doll? But Annabelle, like the possessed plaything it was named after, showed some disturbing signs of life—scaring up $37.2 million itself to finish a not-so-distant second. If Gone Girl’s not careful in the coming days, it could wake up one morning and see Annabelle standing beside its bed, flashing its disturbingly frozen grin, and brandishing … a tablet computer displaying the latest box office results.
Denzel Washington’s The Equalizer, last week’s champ, couldn’t equalize these two powerful newcomers. Still, it did manage to collect $19 million en route to a third-place finish, suggesting that most American parents this week elected to keep their kids home. Bloody R-rated movies filled the top three spots. We don’t hit a fairly family friendly film until No. 4, where The Boxtrolls took up residence this weekend. The animated flick earned $12.4 million to nudge past The Maze Runner’s $12 mil, leaving the latter to wallow in fifth place.
Left Behind, the weekend’s third wide release, finished outside the Top Five. But Nicolas Cage did pilot this Christian flick to about $6.9 million. That’s not great, I suppose: God’s Not Dead earned $9.2 million during its opening weekend earlier this year, and Son of God collected a whopping $25.6 million. But according to Box Office Mojo, it’s “not bad,” either. Sure, it might’ve been a little left behind … but it wasn’t left in the dust.
Final figures update: Gone Girl, $37.5 million; 2. Annabelle, $37.1 million; 3. The Equalizer, $18.8 million; 4. The Boxtrolls, $12.0 million; 5. The Maze Runner, $11.6 million. Left Behind finished in sixth place with $6.3 million.
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