Weekend Box Office: 'Interstellar' Hits $449M Worldwide

I created a wholly separate weekend box office report for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay part I. As such, thought I'd try something different this weekend. I'll be offering a separate weekend box office report for the various holdover news. This post is that separate report. Let me know if you approve of this potentially new format, which will allow me to give more context to both the new release films and the various holdovers.

The big holdover news was the apparent crashing-and-burning of Dumb and Dumber To on its second weekend. The Universal ( Comcast ) release earned just $13.8 million on its second weekend, a drop of 62% from last weekend's $36m opening weekend. Now the film is not expensive, so a $57.5m ten-day total for the $40m Jim Carrey/Jeff Daniels comedy is nothing to be sneezed at, especially as the film may-well level out over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend since there isn't too much coming out next weekend. Last weekend's $36m debut means that there was an audience for a sequel to the 1994 comedy, but either it was an audience mostly limited to the die-hards who showed up already or it was a case of the fans and general audiences not approving of what they saw. The reviews are terrible and the word-of-mouth was mixed at best. Quite frankly, this was not a surprise.

Walt Disney's  Big Hero 6 continued to hold strong on its third weekend, earning $20.09 million, or down just 41% from last weekend's $34.6m gross, and crossing $120m domestic. The animated superhero adventure now has a 17-day total of $135,7m. That's still the biggest "end of weekend three of wide release" total for a non-Pixar Disney cartoon outside of Frozen ($164m) and The Lion King ($143m) and it's still outpacing Wreck It Ralph ($18.5m third weekend) and Tangled ($14.3m third weekend). So yes, it's still pacing to soar over $200m domestic and perhaps more if it can hold off The Penguins of Madagasacr next weekend. It has earned $185.2m worldwide.

Chris Nolan's Interstellar earned another $15.1 million on its third weekend, down 46% from last weekend's $28.3m gross, bringing its cume to $120.69m. By the way, 33% of that weekend gross came from IMAX alone, which is a record for the most premium of premium large formats. The $165m Matthew McConaughey sci-fi drama is doing well enough domestically but is making "all of the money" overseas. The film is proving to be a solid domestic performer without being overtly super-powered, but any concerns about the film's domestic gross (courtesy of Paramount/ Viacom Inc.) is mitigated by a strong overseas run (courtesy of Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc.) that has pushed the film to $449m worldwide this weekend. It should still end up equaling its $165m production budget domestically while earning much more overseas. It's no Inception, but it's absolutely no flop.

20th Century Fox's Gone Girl is the movie that just will not die. The Ben Affleck/Rosamund Pike thriller earned another $2.815 million  this weekend (-38%) and will end the frame with a robust $156.8m domestic cume. It's already made well-over $300m+ worldwide on a $45m budget. Relativity's Beyond the Lights took a somewhat expected tumble on its second frame. The Gugu Mbatha-Raw musical romance earned $2.6m on its second weekend, down 58% from its opening weekend, bringing its cume to $10.1m. It won't be a blockbuster, but its small budget ($7m) and (hopefully) cult following will make it an okay long term investment. Sony's Fury continued to stick around just a little longer, as it earned around $1.5m and has now earned $79.15m domestic.

The Bill Murray/Melissa McCarthy comedy St. Vincent grossed $2.35 million this weekend (-38%)and brought its domestic cume to $36.6m even as it lost 625 screens. Expect this one to hold steady over the holiday weekend, although that will be its last breath unless it surprises with a Bill Murray nomination or other such business. Sony's Brad Pitt vehicle Fury earned $1.9m this weekend (-49%) and brought its cume to $79.15m domestic. Denzel Washington's The Equalizer earned another 280k for the weekend (-40%) and brought its domestic cume to $99.3m. It will probably cross $100m domestic over the holiday.

Michael Keaton's Birdman has become the Oscar bait picture of the moment, to the great sadness of the likes of Whiplash. The film is playing on 862 theaters and earned $1.85 million this frame (-25%) for an over/under $14.4m domestic cume. Considering we're not remotely deep into awards season, I shudder to think how high this one might fly, especially if it ends up with more of a stake in the Oscar race than just Michael Keaton's Best Actor nomination. In other Oscar bait news, The Theory of Everything expanded to 140 theaters this weekend and earned $1.5m a solid $10,714 per-screen average and a $2.796m domestic cume. The Stephen Hawking/Jane Hawking biopic is expanding to over 700 theaters next weekend in the majority of US markets.

Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas will earn around $650k over its second weekend (a mere 33% drop oddly enough) and an over/under $2m cume. Nightcrawler earned another $1.2m this weekend (-59%), giving it a cume of $27.169m.  Jon Stewart's Rosewater should earn around $500k on its second weekend, a sharp 57% drop which will also bring its cume to $2m. Finally Foxcatcher expanded to 24 theaters this weekend, and the Steve Carell/Channing Tatum/Mark Ruffalo wrestling drama earned $474,339 on its second weekend and an $820k domestic cume. Finally, John Wick crossed $40m domestic this weekend.

And that's a wrap for today. Join us next weekend for the Thanksgiving frame, when DreamWorks Animation's The Penguins of Madagascar opens courtesy of 20th Century Fox while Warner Bros. debuts Horrible Bosses 2. Both of these films drop Wednesday, and Friday sees the four-screen platform debut of The Imitation Game. As always, enjoy the Rentrak top-10 list below: