Box Office: 'Maze Runner' Sprints To $11.25M Friday, $30M+ Weekend

There were four major new releases this weekend, any one of which arguably would have dominated the frame had they moved to the mostly-vacant September 6th slot. But I digress. The Maze Runner is the top movie of the weekend, having begun its box office sprint with a robust $11 million. Considering the film cost just $30m to produce, I would argue that its $30m+ weekend debut, which will place it among the ten-biggest September debuts, qualifies as a major win. The 20th Century Fox release, which played in standard theaters and IMAX, is the latest would-be franchise to emanate from a young-adult fantasy book series. The film, about a group of young boys trapped on a mysterious and deadly island with no memory of their former lives, is based on a book by James Dashner. The film benefited from a somewhat simple hook and lacked the complicated world-building that required an entire marketing campaign to explain. The lead Dylan O'Brian isn't necessary a major star, but his role in MTV's  Teen Wolf series certainly mattered in terms of exposure in kid-friendly marketing avenues. Point being, we are getting to the point where there are enough YA fantasy-lit films that not everyone has to be held up as the next Hunger Games. As such, The Maze Runner, which is frankly a better movie than I expected, is a small-scale genre entry that is doing pretty terrific business in regards to its own budget and expectations.

Liam Neeson's A Walk Among the Tombstones earned $4.7 million on its opening Friday. That's below the $6.5m earned by The Grey and certainly below the $10m earned by the first Friday of Non-Stop back in February. That's not a surprise, as the Universal (Comcast Corp.) release is a very dark, very violent, and very icky hard-boiled detective film . This was technically a "one for me" project for Mr. Neeson, as the $23m thriller shouldn't be expected to reach the heights of Unknown ($63m domestic) or Non-Stop ($91m domestic), let alone Taken ($143m domestic). The Grey, which somewhat misled audiences into thinking its meditative drama about men coming to terms with death was an action film with Neeson punching wolves, earned $51m back in 2012 and that was really the best case scenario for A Walk Among the Tombstones. The film wil end the weekend with $14m and will make money over the long haul. The only thing technically at stake is a franchise in this potentially sequel-rich series. Universal ran an honest campaign, and it's a pretty good movie for those who know what they are in for. I'd argue for legs, save for the fact that Denzel Washington's somewhat more popcorn-ish The Equalizer drops next weekend.

Also debuting this weekend is the Warner Bros. (Time Warner Inc.) release This is Where I Leave You. The $19 million dramatic comedy from Shawn Levy (best known for high-concept comedies like Date Night, The Internship, and Night at the Museum) earned $3.9m yesterday, setting the stage for an $11m-$12m weekend. That's no great shakes, although to be fair the all-star cast (Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Jane Fonda, Corey Stoll, Rose Byrne, Adam Driver, etc.) are more "people we recognize and like" as opposed to "box office draws for whom we will see any movie which features them." It's a pretty good movie, one that falls into conventional sitcom resolutions late in the game but otherwise is the kind of middlebrow, unapologetic (lightweight) drama that is all-but-unheard of outside of the Oscar season. That the film got made despite lacking in realistic Oscar expectations is something of a miracle, and as such I will champion it on principle.

The fourth new release of the weekend is Kevin Smith's Tusks. The film was released by A24 into 600 screens and will sadly earn under/over $1 million for its debut weekend.  The film, starring Justin Long, Michael Parks, Genesis Rodriguez, and Haley Joel Osment, concerns an abrasive podcaster who ends up getting kidnapped by an insane elderly war vet who has horrific intentions for the young man. It sadly didn't play beyond the hardcore Kevin Smith fans and will easily be his lowest-grossing semi-wide release since Mallrats, which earned $2m back in 1995. As I noted in my review, I'm somewhat surprised that it got a wide release at all, even with Smith's name on the poster. That's not a knock on its quality, but rather that most of the more outside the box horror titles have been going the VOD route of late, so this somewhat original horror title getting a semi-wide release was a pleasant surprise. The good news is that A24 didn't spend much on advertising, so the only real loss is Mr. Smith's directorial ego.

In holdover news, Sony's No Good Deed earned $2.95 million on its second Friday, down 66% from its previous Friday. Still, the $24m thriller (starring Idris Elba and Taraji P. Henson) will earn around $9.5m for the weekend, giving the film a 10-day domestic cume of $39.2m. A Dolphin Tale 2, which by the way is a perfectly satisfying family-friendly drama, dropped a troubling 50% from last Friday, earning $2.135m yesterday. The $35m sequel has thus far earned $20.2m and will close the weekend with around $26m. When the Game Stands Tall earned $0.32m last night paving the way for a $1m weekend and a $28.3m domestic cume.

If I Stay earned another $0.5m (-54%) yesterday, giving the Chloe Moretz romantic drama $46.3m thus far. Walt Disney's Guardians of the Galaxy should earn around $5m after earning $1.38m last night. The Marvel fantasy now has $309m domestic and should have $313m by tomorrow, surpassing the $312m total of Iron Man 2. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles grossed $0.63m yesterday, bringing its cume to $183m. The Tom Hardy/James Gandolfini crime drama The Drop earned $645k yesterday, setting the stage for a $2m second weekend giving the cheap release over/under $7.5m after ten days.

That's it for today. Join me tomorrow for more holdover news and the weekend estimates.