Thor Smashes Box Office Competition
Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World had a successful start last weekend (Nov. 8-10) with a first place take of $85.74 million. The Marvel superhero sequel starring Chris Hemsworth debuted in line with expectations. Thor: The Dark World opened 30.5 percent stronger than the $65.72 million start of 2011’s Thor. With only one new wide release scheduled for this coming weekend — Universal Pictures’ The Best Man Holiday — Thor: The Dark World could hold up relatively well, although competition will become much fiercer the following weekend when Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: Catching Fire debuts.
Chris Hemsworth stars as Thor. (Photo: Marvel)
It was a tight race for second place between Paramount Pictures’ Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, Relativity Media’ s Free Birds and CBS Films’ Last Vegas. Bad Grandpa ultimately claimed second with $11.33 million, while Free Birds and Last Vegas followed closely behind with $11.11 million and $11.04 million respectively. All three held up well. Bad Grandpa was down 43 percent, Free Birds fell just 30 percent and Last Vegas dropped 32 percent. Respective total grosses stand at $78.77 million for Bad Grandpa in 17 days, at $33.47 million for Last Vegas in 10 days and Free Birds at $30.13 million in 10 days.
The weekend wasn’t as good for Lionsgate’s Ender’s Game. The previous top film was down four spots and a sharp 62 percent to land in fifth with $10.26 million. Ender’s Game took a big hit from the arrival of Thor: The Dark World, which had been widely expected. Ender’s Game has grossed $44.01 million in 10 days.
In its first weekend of wide release, Fox Searchlight’s 12 Years a Slave grossed $6.68 million to place in seventh. After a very strong hold the previous weekend, the awards season hopeful increased a 39 percent last weekend after expanding into an additional 734 locations. The 24-day take for 12 Years a Slave stands at $17.42 million.
Meanwhile, Universal Pictures’ About Time placed in ninth in its first weekend of wide release with an underwhelming $4.76 million. That represented a 342 percent increase over the previous weekend’s limited start (when the film was playing in just 175 locations). About Time has grossed $6.28 million in its first 10 days of release.
| This Week | Last Week | Movie | Weekend Gross | Cumulative Gross | Weeks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | N/A | Thor: The Dark World | $85.7M | $85.7M | 1 |
| 2 | 2 | Jackass Presents: Bad Grampa | $11.3M | $78.8M | 3 |
| 3 | 4 | Free Birds | $11.1M | $30.1M | 2 |
| 4 | 3 | Last Vegas | $11.0M | $33.5M | 2 |
| 5 | 1 | Ender’s Game | $10.3M | $44.0M | 2 |
| 6 | 5 | Gravity/td> | $12.8M | $218.9M | 6 |
| 7 | N/A | 12 Years a Slave | $6.7M | $17.4M | 4 |
| 8 | 6 | Captain Phillips | $5.7M | $90.9M | 5 |
| 9 | N/A | About Time | $4.8M | $6.3M | 2 |
| 10 | 7 | Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 | $2.8M | $110.0M | 7 |
