Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | Box Office Round-Ups | October 14, 2012
It was an exciting weekend at the box office, as the well received Sinister led the Friday box office, but was bounced to number three for the weekend after a Saturday surge from Ben Affleck’s Argo, a movie that received a rare A+ Cinemascore (and 93 percent of whose audience was over 25, and therefore a harder audience to please). Argo ($20 million) ended the weekend as the number two film right behind Taken 2 ($22 million), and expect Argo to have long legs, hanging around the rest of the year and perhaps even getting a re-release after it racks up a ton of Oscar nominations (and unlike another early Oscar contender, The Master, Argo was actually entertaining).
Meanwhile, Sinister wildly overperformed, racking up $18 million on a $3 million budget. I’m stoked for co-writer C. Robert Cargill (Massawyrm at Ain’t It Cool News) because, despite his affiliation with a site that uses Comic Sans, the little I know of him suggests he’s one of the nicest, most genuine guys in the movie blog world, and I like it when good people succeed. Congratulations, Mr. Cargill.
I’m also happy to see that Sinister beat out Here Comes the Boom, which came in at number five with a soft $12 million opening weekend. That’s two underperforming Kevin James films in a row now (Zookeeper), although both James and Adam Sandler provided voice work on Hotel Transylvania, the number four film on the weekend, crossing the $100 million mark.
Speaking of Sandler, he is expectedly among the 10 highest grossing “Saturday Night Live” alums of all time. Here’s that list.
1. Eddie Murphy — $3.8 billion lifetime gross
2. Ben Stiller — $2.61 billion lifetime gross
3. Robert Downey, Jr. — $2.59 billion lifetime gross
4. Dan Aykroyd — $2.42 billion lifetime gross
5. Mike Myers — $2.21 billion lifetime gross
6. Adam Sandler — $2.18 billion lifetime gross
7. Will Ferrell — $1.51 billion lifetime gross
8. Bill Murray — $1.47 billion lifetime gross
9. Chris Rock — $1.44 billion lifetime gross
10. Chevy Case — $997 million lifetime gross
Elsewhere at the box office, Pitch Perfect put up another $9 million ($36 million cumulative), Looper crossed the $50 million mark, and sadly, Martin McDonaugh’s Seven Psychopaths came in at only number nine with $4.2 million. I saw a double feature of Seven Psychopaths and Argo on Friday night, one of the best movie nights I’ve had in a very long time.
