Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
October 11, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com

He's not very happy for a guy whose movie was in first place yesterday.

Dracula Untold

The number one film on Friday is not the movie starring [bp:5276_]Robert Downey Jr.[/bp] or the children’s book adaptation. Instead, it’s the action film that’s essentially the origin story of Dracula. Dracula Untold earned $8.9 million on Friday, which is a strong start. It’s likely that for the second weekend in a row, the top movie on Friday is not the winner of the weekend as Gone Girl is displaying solid legs. Still, Dracula Untold is looking at a very solid weekend of $21.3 million.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

The children’s book adaptation and an excellent way to pad word counts, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day earned $5.2 million on Friday, good for third place. There’s been a distinct lack of family fare lately, especially live action, so while not a gangbusters total, it’s filling a very underserved niche, which has been a box office theme this year. A $15 million weekend is just fine for the film starring [bp:7561_]Steve Carell[/bp] and [bp:185_]Jennifer Garner[/bp].

The Judge

$4.4 million and fifth place is a disappointing Friday for The Judge, with Robert Downey Jr. and [bp:1556_]Robert Duvall[/bp]. It picked a bad week to attempt to go toe to toe with Gone Girl, as the older audiences are still opting for that film. When it comes to films aimed at older viewers, reviews matter. This performance also shows that Downey’s fans only want him to be Tony Stark, or possibly Sherlock Holmes. $13.2 million seems to be the upper limit for its weekend total.

Addicted

The surprise of the weekend is Addicted, earning $3 million on Friday in just 846 theaters. An adaptation of an erotic thriller, somehow something that was seems like it was destined to air on Cinemax got released theatrically by Lionsgate and it seems to have paid off. Most likely benefiting from a predominately African-American cast, Addicted looks to have a $7.8 million weekend.

Gone Girl

With $8.1 million on Friday, Gone Girl again finds itself in second place, but looks to be on top for the weekend. That’s just a 38.1% decline from last Friday, so there’s a fair amount of legs here as it continues to have strong word-of-mouth and ostensibly begins award season. Gone Girl will win the weekend by a more comfortable margin than last weekend when Annabelle nearly stole the crown, as it comes in with a second frame of $25.1 million.