NEW YORK — The spirits moved Ouija to No. 1 at the box office, with the board-game adaption leading the weekend with a $20 million debut, according to studio estimates Sunday.
The horror movie release, timed to Halloween, attracted more moviegoers at the North America box office than the violent Keanu Reeves thriller John Wick. The hit-man revenge tale opened with $14.2 million in second place.
Last week’s top film, the Brad Pitt World War II action film Fury, slid to third with $13 million. In two weeks, the release has made $46.1 million.
Board-game adaptions such as Ouija have had a checkered history at the box office, with the big-budget Battleship – the last Hasbro game turned into a movie – famously flopping in 2012. But Ouija was made for just $5 million, and scared up moviegoers with a micro-budget summoning of brand-name occult.
David Fincher’s marital noir Gone Girl, starring Ben Affleck, made $11.1 million in its fourth week, bringing its cumulative total to $124 million. It will soon pass Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ($127.5 million) to mark the director’s top box office hit.
In its second week of release, the animated fantasy The Book of Life earned $9.8 million.
Next weekend’s top film is essentially already decided. Christopher Nolan’s space travel thriller Interstellar, one of the year’s most anticipated releases, opens in select theaters Wednesday and then wide on Friday. Nolan, an ardent advocate for film, is releasing the movie first in about 240 theaters that still project 35mm or 70mm, rather than digital.
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