Weekend Box Office Report

It feels like common sense: of course the horror movie released a week before Halloween is going to win the weekend war at the box office over the action movie. And yet, most horror movies continue to get released as far away from the season of the witch as possible. Can the recent success of 'Annabelle' and this weekend's 'Ouija' change that?

Brad Pitt's new World War II drama 'Fury' opened at number at the box office and has officially defined what this October has been about: long, R-rated movies featuring huge movie stars bucking the usual trends and out-grossing their family friendly competition. Between this and 'Gone Girl,' it looks like grown adults are heading to their multiplex more than ever these days.

'Gone Girl' may have barely won its first weekend at the box office over 'Annabelle,' but in its second week of release, it emerged as the real victor. Fighting off tons of new competition, David Fincher's thriller held onto the number one spot and made it look easy.

The box office can often produce some pretty wacky showdowns, but few have showcased too films as wildly different as 'Annabelle' and 'Gone Girl.' The creepy spin-off from 'The Conjuring' and the latest from director David Fincher battled each other for the number one spot this weekend and while we seem to have a winner, the results are almost too close to call...

When you put Denzel Washington in an action movie, you've written your meal ticket for the foreseeable future. Few actors are as consistent as Washington with their opening weekends, even when the project looks like something everyone has seen countless times before...

Young adult movies are big business. 'The Maze Runner' took over the box office this weekend, proving that the audience for films were young people in science fiction dystopias are forced into violent and terrible predicaments extends beyond the 'Hunger Games' franchise.

After a month at the top, 'Guardians of the Galaxy' has finally fallen from the number one spot on the box office charts. All it took was a modestly budgeted thriller starring Idris Elba and Taraji P. Henson. But 'No Good Deed' didn't just push Marvel off its throne -- it exceeded all expectations and looks like it may be the rare September release to actually be a hit...

There actually was a new film released this week. It's called 'The Identical' and it's a Christian-themed fable about what would have happened if Elvis Presley's stillborn twin brother had survived. Well, for reasons that should be obvious after reading that sentence, 'Guardians of the Galaxy' held onto the number one spot this weekend while 'The Identical' opened outside of the top 10, never to be heard from again.

A few weeks ago, this column was skeptical that Marvel's 'Guardians of the Galaxy' could reach $300 million. Now, it seems impossible that it won't. Thanks to ecstatic word of mouth, killer marketing and only one genuinely successful box office challenger (that would be 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'), Marvel's oddball space opera has managed to spend three of the past four weekends at the number one spot at the box office, giving it enough momentum to officially become the highest grossing film of 2014.

You can tell the summer movie season is coming to an end because the weekend box office has stopped being exciting and has starting becoming sad and weird. The past two weeks have seen several major movies bomb, but nothing could have prepared us for 'Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.'