Doom Continues Gloom at the Box Office

Source: Comingsoon.net

Universal Studios' adaptation of the video game Doom topped the box office with an opening weekend take of roughly $15.4 million, not particularly impressive when compared to movies like Resident Evil and Tomb Raider. Then again, it would be the only movie to earn more than $10 million this weekend, as the abysmal October continued to disappoint the movie industry.

Entering the charts in second place, DreamWorks' horseracing film Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story, starring Kurt Russell and Dakota Fanning, brought in a respectable $9.3 million in about a thousand fewer theatres than Doom with a theatre average of $4,633.

DreamWorks and Aardman Studios' Claymation comedy Wallace & Gromit - The Curse of the Were-Rabbit continued to hold up well in its third weekend, as it dropped to third place, earning another $8.7 million and bringing its box office gross to $44 million.

In fourth place, Screen Gems' remake of John Carpenter's The Fog also held up better than similar horror films, adding another $7.1 million to bring its take to $21.5 million. It has earned back its production budget of $18 million in less than ten days.

Warner Bros. feminist drama North Country, starring Charlize Theron, grossed a disappointing $6.5 million in 2,555 theatres, a tragic average of just over $2,500 per venue and only enough to get it into fifth place. Warner Bros. best hopes for the film will have to rely on the Motion Pictures Academy bestowing it with Oscar nominations early next year.

Cameron Crowe's challenging romantic comedy Elizabethtown, starring Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom, didn't hold up so well in its second weekend, dropping down to sixth place with $5.7 million.

The Jodie Foster thriller Flightplan and the Cameron Diaz dramedy In Her Shoes each lost almost 600 theatres, but held up their business remarkably well, taking seventh and eighth place with $4.7 and $3.9 million respectively. With a box office gross of over $77 million, Flightplan remains the highest grossing movie of the fall season, so far.

The Top 10 was rounded out by the Al Pacino-Matthew McConaughey drama Two For the Money, which added another $2.4 million taking its box office receipts up to $20.7 million.

George Clooney's historical drama Good Night, and Good Luck moved into the Top 12 as it expanded into 225 theatres this weekend, earning roughly $2.3 million. An unmiticated success, expect the film, which stars David Strathairn as newsman Edward Murrow, to expand even further across the nation in the coming weeks.

Marc "Finding Neverland" Forster's psychological thriller Stay, starring Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts, had a weak opening of only $2.2 million, which wasn't even enough to get it into the Top 12.

In limited release: Touchstone Pictures opened Steve Martin's Shop Girl, starring Claire Danes. It earned $236 thousand in its eight theatres, an average of $29.5 thousand per venue. Likewise, Warner Bros. released Shane "Lethal Weapon" Black's Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, an action-comedy starring Val Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr., into the same number of theatres where it earned around $174 thousand. The latter will expand nationwide on November 11, and the former will probably expand wider, as well.

Still, this was another bad weekend in one of the worst Octobers in years, especially when compared to 2004 where The Grudge reigned over the box office with $39 million. The four new movies didn't even earn that much combined.