The reviews were, to put it kindly, not great, but Hasbro’s long development process and drive to keep making a lower budget film from the Ouija board property it owns have paid off, with the teen horror movie scoring a surprise win at the US box office this weekend, according to studio estimates.
Ouija targeted the pre-Halloween crowd given the relative dearth of scary movies around this year, and managed a healthy $20 million to arrive top of the charts. And that was despite strong competition from Keanu Reeves and vengeance action thriller John Wick, which finds a former assassin pushed back into a world of violence when he and the ones he loves are attacked. The film made $14.1 million for second place.
Those two new arrivals meant David Ayer’s tank thriller Fury had to retreat to third place, adding $13 million to its total, which has now passed $46 million in the States. David Fincher’s **Gone Gir****l **fell from second to fourth with $11.1 million, but the drama has already earned more than $124 million in the US alone. Animated adventure **The Book Of Life **slipped to fifth with $9.8 million.
Bill Murray-anchored indie comedy drama St. Vincent expanded, adding 2,214 screens to its tally and jumped into the top ten at sixth place, earning $8 million for a $9.1 million total so far. Disney’s live action comedy Alexander And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day dropped to seventh, taking home $7 million. That was still better than the latest Nicholas Sparks adaptation, The Best Of Me in eighth, which continues to be among his worst performers. The romantic drama made $4.7 million for a $17 million domestic total to date, several million short of earning back its $26 million budget alone.
The Judge slipped two places to ninth, taking in $4.34 million, while Dracula Untold had its wings clipped, falling from sixth to tenth and $4.3 million.
To see a group of teenagers use a Ouija board to scare Keanu Reeves in the full chart listings, head to Box Office Mojo.