‘Gone Girl’ Wins Box Office, Becomes David Fincher’s Highest Opening Film

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, David Fincher’s Gone Girl was expected to be the number one film at the box office over the weekend. The other film that could have taken the spot was the horror feature, Annabelle, which scored a higher opening on Friday.

According to Forbes, Gone Girl did secure the top spot with $38 million, and Annabelle scored a strong second with $37.2 million. This is only the second time in the month of October that two films opened with more than $30 million in one weekend. The first time was in 2008, when High School Musical 3 debuted with $42 million and Saw V came in second with $31 million.

Gone Girl became the highest grossing opening film for its director, David Fincher. His previous best was Panic Room, which opened with $30 million in 2002. As Box Office Mojo points out, Gone Girl earned more in its opening weekend than two of Fincher’s previous films, Zodiac and Fight Club, earned domestically in their entire theatrical runs.

Along with being the highest opener for Fincher, Gone Girl also became the top opening film for Neil Patrick Harris. His previous best was The Smurfs, which debuted with $35 million.

For some other actors, Gone Girl scored pretty high on the list of their best opening films, but it didn’t take the number one spot like it did for Fincher and Harris. The film became the second highest debut for Tyler Perry after Madea Goes to Jail ($40 million), and it was the third highest for star Ben Affleck after Pearl Harbor($59 million) and Daredevil ($41 million).

Gone Girl is garnering a lot of praise from critics. Rotten Tomatoes reports that the film has an 87 percent average, with 183 of the 210 gathered reviews being positive.

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone was one of those critics who loved Gone Girl, and he said Rosamund Pike’s performance as Amy Dunne is one worthy of numerous awards.

“Does she possess the role of Amy, or does the role possess her? Either way, she’s dazzling, depraved and dynamite.”

Another film that opened this weekend was the Nicolas Cage-starring adaptation of Left Behind, which was met with very negative reviews from critics. In a limited 1,825 theaters, the movie earned $6.85 million and came in at number six.

None of the other films in the top five stood a chance against Gone Girl and Annabelle. According to Box Office Mojo, last week’s champion, The Equalizer, dropped to number three with $19 million. The Boxtrolls came in at number four with $12.4 million and The Maze Runner took the number five spot with $12 million.

[Image credit: 20th Century Fox via Page to Premiere and Indiewire]