Movie

While 'Bad Grandpa' shines on the domestic movie chart and slavery true-story drama '12 Years a Slave' shows its potential, all-star drama thriller 'The Counselor' falls flat.

• Oct 28, 2013

AceShowbiz - After ruling North American box office for three consecutive weeks, "Gravity" finally has to give up the top spot to "Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa". The fourth "Jackass" film bows at No. 1 with $32 million, reportedly becoming the 3rd-biggest R-rated comedy opener of the year.

The $15 million-budgeted film becomes the sixth box office No. 1 for lead actor Johnny Knoxville after his three "Jackass" films, "Men in Black II", and "The Dukes of Hazzard". The first "Jackass" movie to have a sort of plot, the hidden-camera comedy receives a "B" grade from CinemaScore.

The first "Jackass" film opened to $22.8M in late October 2002, "Jackass: Number Two debuted with $29 million in late September 2006, and "Jackass 3D posted the highest opening of them all with a sizzling $50.4 million in October 2010. However, it should be noted that the third movie partly got a boost from 3-D ticket prices.

"Bad Grandpa" appealed to moviegoers older than 25 (63|percent|) and younger (37|percent|), the complete opposite of the "Jackass 3D" demo breakdown.

"Gravity" falls to the second place with $20.3 million (down 32|percent|), nearly crossing the $200 million mark domestically. The George Clooney and Sandra Bullock pairing tops the foreign chart with $36.6 million, pushing its international cume to a total of $164.4 million.

A couple slots lower, "The Councelor" enters the domestic box office at No. 4 with a flat $8 million opening. Despite having such A-listers as Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, and Brad Pitt as a cast and Ridley Scott as a director, it's slapped with a "D" CinemaScore. It cost $25M to make.

"Some good grosses in the big city, core runs where audiences are more likely to be receptive to challenging, provocative filmmaking," says Fox domestic marketing president Chris Aronson. "We're extremely proud of our filmmaker Ridley Scott as well as our phenomenal cast who all came together to make this film for a very reasonable price."

He adds, "We opened in a few international territories this weekend so the end result for our modestly budgeted film is far from being known at this time. But suspect we will be in good shape financially at the end of the day."

But Fox gets redemption from another of its film "12 Years a Slave". Boosted by Oscar buzz and an "A" CinemaScore, the historical drama also having Fassbender and Pitt on the cast ensemble jumped from No. 16 into the top 10 after expanding from 19 to 123 theaters.

Directed by Steve McQueen and co-produced by Pitt, the slavery film based on Solomon Northup's autobiography sits at No. 8 with $2.1 million for a 10-day total of $3.4 million. Next week, it will expand to 45 new cities and over 400 locations across North America.

1. "Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa" - $32 million
2. "Gravity" - $20.3 million
3. "Captain Phillips" - $11.8 million
4. "The Counselor" - $8 million
5. "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2" - $6.1 million
6. "Carrie" - $5.9 million
7. "Escape Plan" - $4.3 million
8. "12 Years a Slave" - $2.1 million
9. "Enough Said" - $1.5 million
10. "Prisoners" - $1 million