‘The Martian’ and ‘Hotel Transylvania 2’ proved unstoppable at the box office.  For a second weekend, Ridley Scott’s sci fi drama and Sony’s family frightfest landed the #1 and #2 spots, while the weekend’s biggest release, ‘Pan’ a star-studded retelling of the Peter Pan story, crash landed with a meager $15.5 million opening on a $150 million budget.

Otherwise, numbers were fairly stable week-over-week with ‘The Intern’ and ‘Sicario’ rounding out the Top 5.

  1. The Martian (20th Century Fox) – $37 million
  2. Hotel Transylvania 2 (Sony) – $20.3 million
  3. Pan (Warner Brothers) – $15.5 million
  4. The Intern (Warner Brothers) – $8.7 million
  5. Sicario (Lionsgate) – $7.4 million

‘Pan’ starring Hugh Jackman, Rooney Mara and Garrett Hedlund was originally slated for a summer release, but it seems getting pushed to fall didn’t help against the powerhouse ‘Hotel Transylvania 2’ which opened huge and garnered great word of mouth.  That plus the upcoming Halloween holiday helped the Adam Sandler flick stay strong against the also family-friendly ‘Pan’ which looks like a dud all around, gaining only $20.5 in international markets.

In outside the Top 5 news, Robert Zemeckis’ ‘The Walk’ is also an across the board flop.  Like ‘Everest’ before, Sony attempted to open the movie in 3D IMAX before it’s standard release to hopefully generate excitement and word of mouth.  In the case of ‘Everest’, that movie actually did extremely well in the larger format, but despite positive audience reaction, essentially flopped upon going wide.  ‘The Walk’ didn’t do nearly as well in IMAX and completely bombed in wide release, winding up at #7 with $3.7 million, the lowest ever opening for a Zemeckis film.

Outside the Top 10, ‘Steve Jobs’ opened on all of four screens, but did amazing business at those locations, the best such limited opening this year after ‘American Sniper’.  The movie is slated to open wider with an eye on awards season.

Next week sees the openings of Guillermo del Toro’s horror epic ‘Crimson Peak’ and ‘Goosebumps’.  Halloween could drive interest in both films and ‘Goosebumps’ may benefit from the fact that ‘Hotel Transylvania 2’ will have been out for a month at that point, so families could be seeking something fresh.

Check back next week to see how the newcomers fare against the juggernauts ‘The Martian’ and ‘HT2’.

Source: IGN