Holy crap, Gravity‘s still number one, earning a more-than-healthy $30 million to stay atop the box-office charts for a third straight weekend. Alfonso Cuaron’s brilliant tale of space survival has made $170 million domestically overall, looks to have a decent chance of crossing the $200 million barrier.
I can’t think of a movie more deserving of success, especially since its competition is fairly dire; Captain Phillips, which took second place with $17.3 million, isn’t exactly great, and Carrie, charging up behind it with $17 million, flat-out sucks. (Bill Condon’s The Fifth Estate opened with just $1.7 million; Entertainment Weekly says that’s the worst opening of the year for a wide release. Ouch.)
I mean, it’d be nice to see 12 Years a Slave or A Touch of Sin do that kind of business, but neither of those films will ever be in a position to make Gravity money. And it’s not likely that they would, not having superstars or IMAX 3D to draw in the curious.
But then I don’t think I’d want to see Chiwetel Ejiofor endure endless suffering in IMAX 3D. That’d be a little too real.
Perhaps, in an ironic twist of fate, The Fifth Estate was leaked online and people just watched it for free?
It did occur to me that perhaps this movie’s core audience is used waiting for the download …