Box Office: Gravity Keeps Hold of Top Spot
Sunday, October 20, 2013 at 10:02PM 
It's Amir here, bringing you the weekend's box office report. The Film Experience is taking the revolutionary step of publishing box office headlines that feature no pun this week because Michael C. asked me to. It's a welcome move after last week's cheap shot but hey, we'll be back to normal business next time. Let's look at what the cinema gods have granted us this weekend.
It's October and you guessed it, there's a mediocre remake of a horror classic playing at a theatre near you. Having not seen Carrie, I technically have no right to judgement in public, but sometimes you just have to let your trusted critics speak for you and this film follows in the footsteps of many a mediocre horror remake. The third place debut - though at a not entirely awful $17m - means most of you haven't seen it either, but if it is better than reviews and numbers suggest, let me know in the comments and I'll make the trip.
BOX OFFICE
01 GRAVITY $31 (cum. $170.5) Cinematography Oscar & Sandy B??? & Review
02 CAPTAIN PHILLIPS $17.3 (cum. $53.3) Podcast & Tom Hanks For All Ages
03 CARRIE $17 *new*
04 CLOUDY WITH CHANCE OF MEATBALLS $10.1 (cum. $93.1)
05 ESCAPE PLAN $9.8 *new*
06 PRISONERS $2 (cum. $57.2) Podcast & Review
07 ENOUGH SAID $1.8 (cum. $10.7) Podcast
08 THE FIFTH ESTATE $1.7 *new*
09 RUNNER RUNNER $1.6 (cum. $17.5)
10 INSIDIOUS CHAPTER 2 $1.5 (cum. $80.9)
Gravity is now the 10th biggest grosser of 2013
The real story here is that Gravity and Captain Phillips held on to the top two spots with very respectable small drops. Word of mouth is strong for both films so they will remain hovering around the top again next week. The real questions at this point are whether it is entirely impossible for Gravity to beat competition from The Counselor and Bad Grandpa to stay at number one, and whether Captain Phillips can cruise to above $100m - I'm sorry; just couldn't help it.
The weekend had two other wide releases: Escape Plan, which banked on aged muscle men with immense amounts of plastic surgery to appeal to younger men and understandably failed; and The Fifth Estate, which banked on the public's interest in a topic that remains too fresh and too painful to be dramatized, no matter how uncanny the resemblance of its star to the whistle blower in question; this one had an even rougher ride.
Those of you lucky enough to live near one of the 19 theaters playing the film had the chance to see Steve McQueen's superb new film, 12 Years a Slave, and judging by the per screen average ($50.5k), quite a lot of people took advantage of that opportunity before the film goes wide next week. In even more limited release, Robert Redford's All Is Lost and Daniel Radcliffe's Kill Your Darlings both opened to satisfactory per screen averages, though neither managed to sneak into the top twenty.
Anyway, enough about America now, and a bit about me. I caught up with the environment-themed documentary Watermark (GORGEOUS, well-intentioned and a bit dull), Iranian classic Kandahar (schematic, well-intentioned and a bit dull) and Captain Phillips (intense, Hanks on fire). Now enough about me and a bit about you: what did you watch this weekend?
Captain Phillips, Carrie, Gravity, box office
Reader Comments (17)
So happy to see that 12 Years A Slave is getting the audience it deserves. Hopefully the national box office will only confirm it's good fortune!
I found it interesting to read that the audience for Carrie was older women and under 25s. I suspect that no one who has seen the original had any interest in seeing the remake unless it got reviews that redefined the word. Which it didn't.
Can't wait for 12 years to open nearby.
I went into the Carrie remake expecting to hate. I walked out really enjoying it and thinking about it for hours afterwards. I hate the critical throughline of the remake doing nothing new with the plot. Just because it follows the same events does not mean nothing new is happening. Kimberly Peirce tells the story entirely from a female perspective, minimizing the impact of any men in the story. It also shifts the focus from Carrie to the women in Carrie's life, creating a sort of ensemble horror film about social and power structures in the wide world of public education. Everyone is abusing or manipulating everyone else and Carrie is just stepping into her destiny to do the same when The Destruction happens. Brian De Palma's version is more universal where Peirce's version is almost a feminist critique of Carrie within the structure of De Palma's/Lawrence D. Cohen's adaptation.
I can't exactly remember the last time a female driven horror film that actually commented on the role of women in horror (without commenting on male tropes, as well) received rave reviews. Ginger Snaps? Even then, it wasn't a wide release, and the larger criticism was about werewolves and sexual awakening (well-worn territory there) rather than how women are portrayed in horror films.
Now, I don't know if the Carrie reaction was dismissing remakes on a surface level by default or deciding the focus of the film was the story itself rather than how the story was being told (um, it's Kimberley Peirce; context is everything in her work so far). It could be both, neither, or some combination of other factors. I would think the massively expanded roles for the gym teacher (I think she had more screentime than Margaret White) and the head bully (Chris is actually a proper horror villain rather than just a snotty teen with an attitude problem and a bad boyfriend) would suggest it wasn't a shot for shot remake with nothing new to say, but I've been proven wrong before.
I saw 12 Years a Slave in the largest auditorium in Los Angeles to a mixed audience of mostly white people. But the house wasn't packed and it felt sort of disappointing this material just won't have enough appeal for the population.
Django Unchained is Tarantino subverting the seriousness of a historical period drama for his bullshit. Of course people are comfortable to see a joke involving the detriment of black people. Doesn't make them feel like they're taking their medicine.
Saw 12 Years A Slave and yeah just wow. Ejiofor is amazing.
Gah! Kandahar? Dull? I have no words.
Or I have plenty but they aren't polite.
Let's just say I found the film not only intensely compelling but also emotionally wrenching and haunting.
*sigh* 12 Years opens in Australian on 30 January 2014. If you think it was hard to see it after 4 weeks of hype from Telluride and Toronto, just imagine how hard it will be to see it after 4 MONTHS of hype. I get why they hold it back, till the thick of awards season, but still - frustrating.
I think Carrie should be seen as an adaptation of the book, rather than a remake. Brian De Palma's version is one of my favourite films, and I doubt this version will be as good, but I'm still interested in seeing it for the story.
This weekend, I re-watched Boogie Nights, and then watched the directors commentary, something I've wanted to do since a Burning Questions column put it in my head a few weeks' back. I also watched Midnight Cowboy for the first time.
During the week I saw Gravity and Short Term 12, and despite a few quibbles with each, I thought they were both well-executed and satisfying.
Next up on the docket: Blue Is the Warmest Color and my first viewing of Cabaret!
moviesmoviesmoviesmovies...
Well, I did go see "The Fifth Estate"...and that's why my hair's white. (If you saw the film, you'll know.) I actually enjoyed it, particularly Daniel Brühl, who stole a second film in a row. (Cumberbatch was good as Assange, but Brühl was much better.) There were a few times when the camera work got in the way of the storytelling, I thought, but you can't have everything. Also, I really appreciated the good range of acting in the smaller roles, e.g. David Thewlis, Laura Linney and Alexander Siddig.
goran - Being "a bit dull" isn't mutually exclusive with any of the things you mentioned, all of which describes the film pretty well. My problem with Makhmalbaf is that his films became an extension of his outspoken political ideas post Hello Cinema, though one can see traces of it in Marriage of the Blessed or The Cyclist.
Kandahar, while really moving, feels incredibly didactic at times. I don't know why he feels the need to further direct the audience's emotional response to the film. To give one specific example that film, there is really no reason why Nafas, the protagonist, would narrate the letters she wrote to her sister given that she continuously discusses the fact that she's on her way to meet her sister for an important deadline, you know? The narration is really on the nose and becomes so overbearing by the end, but especially in the manipulative final scene.
Anyway, it's totally worth a watch. I've just never been entirely taken with his films, barring a couple of them.
Saw Captain Phillips this weekend, and while the first half was a little underwhelming, everything after the navy came in was GOLD. The third act was far and away the best work Tom Hanks has ever done. I was absolutely floored by his performance.
I saw Under the Candelabra - finally someone put Michael Douglas' creepy voice to good use. I never understood why he was constantly cast as this irresistible hunk that drove women to insanity or self-destruction (Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, Disclosure) and a big part of that for me always was his voice.
Matt Damon on the other hand...god, I really like him and think he's talented, but I just think he either picks projects that don't work with his best attributes or he kind of flatlines in a movie like this that could have brought out some really fun, new sides of him. Maybe he actually saw his character as an ambivalent cipher? I just never knew how he felt about certain other people in his life and when the dialogue said it outright for him I had no idea if he actually believed what he was saying. Such a weird performance that I'm still thinking about but am less impressed with as time goes on.
I saw Rush and quite enjoyed it. Nice to know that Ron Howard can still make a good movie. It has been so long that I was beginning to wonder.
I saw "Psycho" for the first time! I'd been putting it off for years (dreading I'd have nightmares -- thanks to older brothers who let me watch scary movies WAY too young I now try to avoid horror movies), but it wasn't scary at all! Just thrilling and suspenseful. I wish Hitchcock would have trimmed the psychiatrist's monologue at the end of the film. The over-explanation took away some of the punch.
I saw Gravity, and agree wholeheartedly with Nathaniel R's review. To me, this was a good, mainstream techno-thriller, but for critics to compare it to 2001, or claim that it's the best sci-fi movie ever made? Seriously?!? One of the most glaring problems in the screenplay was the arc of the Sandra Bullock character, which I couldn't believe in....SPOILER ALERT...About midway through the film, she reveals to George Clooney that she lost a 4-year old daughter in a freak accident. Ever since then, she has been stuck in an existential crisis. "I was driving when I got the call, so now I just...drive. I wake up, I go to work, and I just drive." So why, after hallucinating a reappearance and brief pep talk from the Clooney character (who she barely knows and will never see again), does she fight so hard to survive and return to Earth? It would have been more interesting if the filmmakers had explored her personal torment more rigorously. Instead, it seems they simply chose to affirm the mainstream values of prayer and perseverance because that's what their target audience wants. The moment when she turns her oxygen back on, she just becomes the female version of Captain America.
KANDAHAR is not by any means DULL. It's an unfair description.