Weekend of Nov. 02, 2012 -Nov. 04, 2012 | U.S. and Canada Box Office
| This Wk | Last Wk | Title | Distributor | Weekend Gross | Cumulative Gross | Wks Out | # of Theaters |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| 1 | Wreck-It Ralph | Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures | $49,100,000 | $49,100,000 | 1 | 3752 | |
| 2 | Flight | Paramount Pictures | $25,010,000 | $25,010,000 | 1 | 1884 | |
| 3 | 1 | Argo | Warner Bros. Pictures Distribution | $10,245,000 | $75,896,000 | 4 | 2774 |
| 4 | The Man With the Iron Fists | Universal Pictures | $8,219,200 | $8,219,200 | 1 | 1868 | |
| 5 | 6 | Taken 2 | 20th Century Fox Distribution | $6,000,000 | $125,667,000 | 5 | 2639 |
| 6 | 2 | Cloud Atlas | Warner Bros. Pictures Distribution | $5,250,000 | $18,262,000 | 2 | 2013 |
| 7 | 3 | Hotel Transylvania | Sony Pictures Releasing | $4,500,000 | $137,568,000 | 6 | 2922 |
| 8 | 4 | Paranormal Activity 4 | Paramount Pictures | $4,300,000 | $49,577,000 | 3 | 3006 |
| 9 | 7 | Here Comes the Boom | Sony Pictures Releasing | $3,600,000 | $35,572,000 | 4 | 2314 |
| 10 | 5 | Silent Hill: Revelation 3D | Open Road Films | $3,300,000 | $13,900,000 | 2 | 2993 |
| 11 | 11 | Pitch Perfect | Universal Pictures | $3,041,550 | $55,611,200 | 6 | 1502 |
| 12 | 9 | Sinister | Summit Entertainment, LLC | $2,850,000 | $44,392,400 | 4 | 1882 |
| 13 | 10 | Fun Size | Paramount Pictures & Nickelodeon Movies | $2,280,000 | $7,440,000 | 2 | 3016 |
| 14 | 8 | Alex Cross | Summit Entertainment, LLC | $2,000,000 | $23,128,000 | 3 | 1648 |
| 15 | 13 | Chasing Mavericks | 20th Century Fox Distribution | $1,260,000 | $4,390,020 | 2 | 2030 |
| 16 | 16 | The Perks of Being a Wallflower | Lionsgate & Summit Entertainment, LLC | $1,256,000 | $13,073,400 | 7 | 622 |
| 17 | 14 | Looper | TriStar Pictures & Columbia Pictures & FilmDistrict & Sony Pictures Releasing | $1,250,000 | $63,700,000 | 6 | 696 |
| 18 | 15 | Seven Psychopaths | CBS Films | $745,000 | $13,400,000 | 4 | 459 |
| 19 | 12 | Frankenweenie | Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures | $700,000 | $33,300,000 | 5 | 857 |
| 20 | 23 | The Sessions | Fox Searchlight Pictures | $455,899 | $930,817 | 3 | 69 |
| 21 | 21 | The Master | The Weinstein Company | $180,000 | $15,510,800 | 8 | 138 |
| 22 | 27 | Searching for Sugar Man | Sony Pictures Classics | $162,675 | $2,424,130 | 15 | 105 |
| 23 | 32 | The Expendables 2 | Lionsgate | $103,500 | $84,856,200 | 12 | 173 |
| 24 | 30 | The Other Son | The Cohen Media Group | $101,933 | $278,047 | 2 | 50 |
| 25 | 28 | The Bourne Legacy | Universal Pictures | $100,980 | $113,161,000 | 13 | 153 |
| 26 | 44 | The Possession | Lionsgate | $88,000 | $49,975,500 | 10 | 155 |
| 27 | A Late Quartet | Entertainment One Films & Entertainment One Group & RKO Pictures | $75,899 | $75,899 | 1 | 9 | |
| 28 | 42 | Smashed | Sony Pictures Classics | $35,993 | $200,586 | 4 | 21 |
| 29 | 33 | Atlas Shrugged: Part II — The Strike | Atlas Distribution Company & Rocky Mountain Pictures | $35,033 | $3,286,610 | 4 | 70 |
| 30 | 49 | Brooklyn Castle | Producers Distribution Agency | $30,261 | $90,392 | 2 | 13 |
Argo rises above Cloud Atlas in weekend box office
Acclaimed Iran hostage thriller Argo brought home its first box-office win over a quiet weekend, leading movie charts with $12.4 million in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales as would-be moviegoers hunkered down for Hurricane Sandy.
The tally for Argo, directed by and starring Ben Affleck, topped the $9.4 million for new sci-fi drama Cloud Atlas. Halloween-themed animated filmHotel Transylvania scared up $9.5 million from Friday through Sunday, narrowly edging “Cloud Atlas”, studio estimates showed.
After two weeks in the No. 2 spot, “Argo” moved into the lead and lifted its domestic sales to $60.8 million through three weekends.
The movie, produced by Warner Bros. and GK Films for $44 million, tells the story of a mission to rescue U.S. government employees from Iran in 1979. The film has earned Oscar buzz after stellar reviews from critics and an “A+” grade from audiences polled by CinemaScore.
Dan Fellman, president of theatrical distribution for Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner Inc, attributed the film’s jump to “great word-of-mouth”, which he called “the best form of advertising”.
Cloud Atlas, also from Warner Bros., fell short of industry forecasts for a $13 million debut at North American (U.S. and Canadian) theaters. Fellman said the film did better in larger cities, but struggled in the South and Midwest.
The film, starring Tom Hanks and Halle Berry, cost $100 million to make. Many in Hollywood thought the story, based on a philosophical novel by David Mitchell, was too complex to bring to the big screen.
The nearly three-hour film with six interweaving stories divided critics, with the harshest reviewers saying it would try audiences’ patience with multiple storylines and century-hopping plots. The film’s stars also shift characters. Hanks, for example, is a shady doctor in the 1840s, a nuclear scientist in the 1970s and a simple valley-dweller in the distant future.
But Cloud Atlas also drew praise as an ambitious and well-acted epic. Sixty-one percent of reviews on the Rotten Tomatoes website recommended the film.
Hotel Transylvania set a record for a September film opening in North America when it opened on Sept. 28, and has performed solidly since then.
In the family comedy, Frankenstein, the Invisible Man and other monsters gather for a party at a high-end resort operated by Dracula. Their celebration is disrupted when a boy discovers the hotel and falls in love with Dracula’s daughter but must deal with her overprotective father.
The president of worldwide distribution for Sony Corp’s Sony Pictures studio, Rory Bruer, wasn’t entirely surprised that the weeks-old movie beat Cloud Atlas, despite the latter movie’s buzz.
“Anything at this point doesn’t surprise me,” Bruer said. “It’s like an annuity that keeps on giving and giving.”
Paul Dergarabedian, box office analyst at Hollywood.com, said the Halloween weekend gave the film a boost, and is “still the number one choice for families” among the spooky seasonal films currently playing.
This weekend was fairly quiet at the box office in North America, which Dergarabedian attributed to Hurricane Sandy, a storm menacing the East Coast of the United States.
However, the new James Bond movie Skyfall whipped up a storm of its own overseas, taking $77.7 million in 25 countries. The latest installment of the British spy saga took the top spot in all 25 countries, broke the all-time Saturday attendance record in the United Kingdom, and was the biggest film opening there of 2012. It will open in the United States on Nov. 9.
Rounding out the weekend’s top five, low-budget horror sequelParanormal Activity 4 grossed $8.7 million at domestic theaters. Silent Hill: Revelation 3D and Taken 2 tied for fifth place, each pulling in $8 million.
Two other new films failed to crack the top five.
New Halloween-themed comedy Fun Size brought in $4.1 million at domestic theaters, landing in tenth place. The $14 million production tells the story of a boy who goes missing among trick-or-treaters, sparking his teen sister’s frantic search to find him before her mother comes home.
Sports drama Chasing Mavericks disappointed, failing to break the top ten. The movie stars Gerard Butler in the story of a surfer who tries to conquer one of the biggest waves on Earth.