Weekend Box Office

With some of the year’s biggest movies only a month or two away, the box office seems to have entered a holding pattern. Some of the new releases are minor hits. Others crash and burn. Right now, Hollywood just seems to be crossing their fingers and hoping for the sweet, sweet summer movie season to come along and save them (or at least the April release of Furious 7). In other words, every new release underperformed this weekend.

Honestly, we could have just copied and pasted last weekend’s box office report and gotten away with it. Outside of the shifting numbers, the order of the top 10 is almost identical to what it was a week ago. This is Hollywood in a holding pattern. The weekend after Thanksgiving is a wasteland. That’s probably why ‘The Pyramid’ was dumped this weekend. However, the lone newcomer in the top 10 didn’t just bomb, it bombed spectacularly.

‘Dumb and Dumber To’ arrives two decades after the first film was one of the bigger hits of 1994 and no one knew what to make of it ... until it topped the box office this weekend and made it look easy. Now, the idea of two middle-aged actors returning to two of the most idiotic characters in modern movie history doesn't seem so desperate and crazy. It seems canny.

Brad Pitt's new World War II drama 'Fury' opened at number at the box office and has officially defined what this October has been about: long, R-rated movies featuring huge movie stars bucking the usual trends and out-grossing their family friendly competition. Between this and 'Gone Girl,' it looks like grown adults are heading to their multiplex more than ever these days.

The box office can often produce some pretty wacky showdowns, but few have showcased too films as wildly different as 'Annabelle' and 'Gone Girl.' The creepy spin-off from 'The Conjuring' and the latest from director David Fincher battled each other for the number one spot this weekend and while we seem to have a winner, the results are almost too close to call...

When you put Denzel Washington in an action movie, you've written your meal ticket for the foreseeable future. Few actors are as consistent as Washington with their opening weekends, even when the project looks like something everyone has seen countless times before...

After a month at the top, 'Guardians of the Galaxy' has finally fallen from the number one spot on the box office charts. All it took was a modestly budgeted thriller starring Idris Elba and Taraji P. Henson. But 'No Good Deed' didn't just push Marvel off its throne -- it exceeded all expectations and looks like it may be the rare September release to actually be a hit...

A few weeks ago, this column was skeptical that Marvel's 'Guardians of the Galaxy' could reach $300 million. Now, it seems impossible that it won't. Thanks to ecstatic word of mouth, killer marketing and only one genuinely successful box office challenger (that would be 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'), Marvel's oddball space opera has managed to spend three of the past four weekends at the number one spot at the box office, giving it enough momentum to officially become the highest grossing film of 2014.

You can tell the summer movie season is coming to an end because the weekend box office has stopped being exciting and has starting becoming sad and weird. The past two weeks have seen several major movies bomb, but nothing could have prepared us for 'Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.'

A trio of newcomers entered the box office arena this weekend, but two battle-hardened and grizzled champions kept them at bay, holding onto the top two spots and making it look easy. Sorry, newbies: This top 10 still belongs to 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' and 'Guardians of the Galaxy.'