Ender’s Game Tops in Theaters

Summit Entertainment’s Ender’s Game debuted in first place last weekend (Nov. 1-3) with $27.02 million. The sci-fi film starring Asa Butterfield and Harrison Ford debuted in line with expectations. Ender’s Game opened in the same neighborhood as the debuts of Elysium and After Earth earlier this year. It faces competition in coming weeks from Disney’s Thor: The Dark World and Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, both of which debut in the coming weeks.

Ben Kingsley, Harrison Ford and Asa Butterfield star in “Ender’s Game.” (Richard Foreman / Summit Entertainment)

Holding up surprisingly well last weekend was Paramount’s Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa. The Jackass spin-off starring Johnny Knoxville fell 38 percent from the previous weekend to finish in second with $20.01 million. Bad Grandpa held up significantly better than previous Jackass films, as word of mouth and last weekend’s debut possibly being deflated a bit by Halloween weekend festivities both helped. With a healthy 10-day start of $61.57 million, Bad Grandpa is currently running 18 percent ahead of the $52.07 million 10-day take of Jackass: Number Two and 29 percent behind the $86.86 million 10-day gross of Jackass 3D.

It was a close race for third place between fellow newcomers Last Vegas and Free Birds. CBS Films’ ensemble comedy Last Vegas ultimately had the slight edge with a third place take of $16.33 million. That outpaced the $15.81 million fourth place take of Relativity Media’s 3D computer animated Free Birds by $529,329 for the weekend. Last Vegas opened on the high end of expectations, while Free Birds debuted towards the lower end of expectations.

Warner Bros.’ Gravity rounded out the weekend’s top five with $12.83 million. The 3D sci-fi blockbuster was down 36 percent from the previous weekend, which represented a very solid hold given that the film lost its IMAX screens to Ender’s Game last weekend. Gravity has grossed $218.89 million through 31 days of release, which currently ranks the film as the eighth highest grossing release of 2013.