Each weekend Exhibitor Relations Co. releases domestic box office estimates ahead of final figures that come out Monday afternoon. This weekend, "Nightcrawler" made a lackluster box office debut, grossing $10.9 million. See what else came behind it.
"Nightcrawler" barely edged out "Ouija, which drew $10.9 million, bringing its overall take to $35 million total.
"Fury" brought in $9.1 million at the box office this weekend, grossing $60 million in total.
"Gone Girl" earned $8.8 million at the box office this weekend, bringing overall ticket sales to $136 million total.
The Book of Life grossed $8.3 million this weekend, bringing its total domestic take to $40 million.
- "Nightcrawler" appears to edge 'Ouija' for No. 1 by a razor-thin margin
- Jake Gyllenhaal thriller would be the lowest-grossing No. 1 debut in two years
- Nicole Kidman continues her string of flops with "Before I Go To Sleep"
- "Saw" re-release failed to lure fans back into Jigsaw's traps
(CNN) -- Halloween weekend appears to have scared off the major movie studios: none of them released a new film, perhaps figuring folks were more interested in parties and trick-or-treating.
It seems they were right, as the holiday turned cineplexes into ghost towns.
"Nightcrawler," a dark thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal, was the only new movie to open in the top 10, taking in $10.9 million. Gyllenhaal plays a creepy freelance cameraman determined to ride the local TV news trend of "if it bleeds, it leads" to success. Weekend estimates showed "Nightcrawler," from Open Road Films, barely edging last weekend's champ, the horror flick "Ouija,"
Whichever film winds up on top, it'll be the lowest-grossing No. 1 movie since "Guardians of the Galaxy" topped the chart with just $10.4 million in early September in its sixth weekend in release. If "Nightcrawler" squeezes out the win, it'll be the lowest-grossing No. 1 debut in more than two years, when "The Possession" opened with just $9.3 million. Both of those low-grossing number ones occurred on the weekend after Labor Day, traditionally one of the poorest box office weekends of the year.
This weekend's other new wide release, "Before I Go To Sleep," opened outside the top 10, as expected. Nicole Kidman stars as a woman who wakes up every morning with her memory erased. That's an eerie similarity to Kidman's career of late, continuing a pattern of quickly-forgotten films: "Trespass," "The Paperboy" "Stoker," and "The Railway Man."
Even a special Halloween re-release of the original "Saw," the 2004 movie that helped spark the current horror-as-torture-porn genre, couldn't lure many fans. Jigsaw and his victims averaged a pathetic $315 per theater. Strange -- it's as if people looking for scary stuff had something else to do this weekend.
