Box Office Aftermath: ‘Thor: The Dark World’ Makes a Thunderous Debut with $86 Million

Rounding out the weekend of November 8-10, 2013, Thor: The Dark World dominated over the competition, leaving the box office battlefield victorious. Box Office Aftermath is an ongoing column dedicated to recapping the weekend’s total ticket sales. Each week, combatants enter the cinematic war zone, bloodthirsty for your cash. But there can only be one true winner. In Box Office Aftermath, we will take a look at the numbers, how previous contenders fared, and provide a brief analysis of the results.

With little to no competition this weekend, the God of Thunder stormed through cinemas to earn a nice $85.73 million and come in on top. Comparatively, Thor: The Dark World earned $20 million more its opening weekend than the original Thor. However, The Dark World did not come close to the earnings Tony Stark and Iron Man 3 was able to rake in its first weekend – $174.1 million. Thought not as popular as Tony Star, we can see how fans have warmed up to Chris Hemsworth, but it could also be Tom Hiddleston that is drawing audiences to the theaters as well.

In it’s third weekend, Bad Grandpa held tight to second place with $11.32 million. Adding this weekend’s total, the Jackass crew have grossed a domestic box office total of $78.77 million from Bad Grandpa.

Free Birds and Last Vegas flipped flopped positions this weekend to third and fourth, respectively. The timely animated shlock fest garnered $11.11 million while the geezers made it a close race with $11.03 million. Both films retained audiences fairly well, only losing about 29-32 percent of its viewership from last weekend.

Dropping hard and fast was Ender’s Game. From first to fifth, Ender’s Game fell 62 percent, earning only $10.25 million. In just 10-days, the sci-fi epic has only garnered about $54 million worldwide. At a $110 million budget, it may be unlikely we will see a sequel unfortunately. With another quiet weekend, strong results from Thor, and the The Hunger Games coming out in two weeks, it will be very unlikely we’ll see Ender’s Game dust t.his loss off.

12 Years a Slave had a very positive debut to more than 1,000 theaters this weekend. Opening up to over 700 more screens this weekend, the Steve McQueen misery porn raked in $6.67 million. The slow open and critical praise has helped generate a lot of curiosity among movie goers, giving 12 Years a Slave a fighting chance for Oscar season and a seventh place showing.

Another movie that has been out for awhile and has now decided to rear its ugly head in more than 1,000 theaters is About Time. The time-travel rom-dram-com came in ninth this weekend, earning $4.75 million.

And embarrassingly making its quick exit out of theaters was The Counselor. Only in its third weekend out, it left over 2,000 theaters to earn only $815 thousand. Placing fourteenth, one of the most disappointing movies of the year has grossed only $15 million, and will barely make back its $25 million budget with the inclusion of foreign box office.

Thor will most likely win the box office again this coming weekend, but expect it to fall once The Hunger Games: Catching Fire sparks the fire under tweens everywhere.

(Click the image below to enlarge the chart. All figures are domestic box office.)