Neither Cloud Atlas with Tom Hanks and Halle Berry or Silent Hill: Revelation 3D had the ammunition to keep Ben Affleck’s Argo from coming out on top at the North American box office on Friday.
Argo continues to ride a unstoppable wave of praise and should win the weekend after taking first on Friday with $3.96 million, its third Friday of release. The past two weekends have seen Argo finish second both times, but that trend is surely on the verge of coming to an abrupt and deserved end. With only a 22 percent drop in business and gross numbers now north of $52 million, Argo continues a slow and steady march toward possibly breaking the $100 million mark at the North American box office.
Silent Hill: Revelation 3D was the first newcomer dud on Friday with $3.5 million from nearly 3,000 theaters. That’s an extremely weak debut considering the 3D ticket surcharges, as well as the previous film notching more than twice that six years ago with an $8.1 million first 24 hours of release. Silent Hill: Revelation 3D will barely beat that through its entire opening weekend.
Warner’s pricey Cloud Atlas from the Wachowski siblings opened at just over 2,000 theaters, a small count considering the star power in front of and behind the camera. With $3.46 on Friday, Cloud Atlas will limp across the $10 million mark and look for “greener” pastures on Blu-ray and DVD. At least Argo continues to perform well for the studio.
Paranormal Activity 4 suffered the normal horrendous horror steep decline and earned $3.14 million, Friday a huge 79 percent less than its opening a week ago. With only $37.1 million banked thus far, Paranormal Activity 4 is easily the lowest performing entry in the franchise. Paranormal Activity 5 is already booked for next fall considering this most recent entry cost a mere $5 million to produce.
Wrapping the top five is Taken 2 with $2.56 million. The Liam Neeson sequel vehicle is now at $112 million and counting up the dollars and down the days until Fox formally announces a third installment.
Check back tomorrow for the full weekend box office studio estimates and to see if Cloud Atlas was able to pick up a bit of steam and nudge Silent Hill: Revelation 3D out of second place.
