The bloody World War II drama Fury blew past Gone Girl at US theatres last weekend.
Gone Girl was tops at the box office for two weeks before Brad Pitt and his rag-tag group of tank mates in Fury blasted the film to second place. Sony’s Fury captured $23.5 million (Dh86.3 million) in ticket sales during its opening weekend in the US, according to studio estimates on Sunday. Fox’s Gone Girl followed with $17.8 million.
The week’s top two films are R-rated adult dramas, followed by two PG family films.
“The fall [autumn] movie season is all about making the transition from PG-13 world of summer to the R-rated, edgier world of the fall and awards season,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for box-office tracker Rentrak.
The animated Fox feature The Book of Life opened in third place with $17 million, followed by Disney’s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day with $12 million.
“We’re now in full adult movie-going season and we’ll see a lot more adult-skewing fare,” said Fox distribution chief Chris Aronson, who added that the colorful Book of Life suits any audience.
Another new film rounds out the top five: Relativity’s Nicholas Sparks romance The Best of Me, starring Michelle Monaghan and James Marsden, debuted with $10.2 million.
Birdman, the Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu drama starring Michael Keaton, opened in just four theatres in the US. It opens in additional locations next week.
Overall box office is up almost 25 per cent from the same weekend last year, Dergarabedian said, and the strong autumn showing at cinemas is making up for a year-to-date box-office deficit that dropped from 6 per cent to 4 per cent in the last month.
