There was not a pot of gold at the top of that beanstalk... or rather there was but it had already been raided to build said beanstalk in the first place.
Box Office WIDE
01 JACK THE GIANT SLAYER *NEW* $28 Review
02 IDENTITY THIEF $9.7 (cum. $107.4)
03 21 AND OVER *NEW* $9.0
04 THE LAST EXORCISM PART II *NEW* $8
05 SNITCH $7.7 (cum. $24.4)
Given Jack the Giant Slayer's gargantuan budget ($200 million), and the loss of the family audience next weekend when Oz: The Great and Powerful cuts it off at the knees beanstalk (har-de-har-har), this has to be a regarded as a face plant (plant. get it, I... never mind). Unless its overseas take is significantly better.
Box Office PLATFORM
01 THE GATEKEEPERS $.2 (cum. $.6)
02 STOKER *NEW* $.1 Review
03 NO $.1 (cum. $.3) Review
04 HYDE PARK ON HUDSON *$.04 (cum. $6.2)
05 STAND UP GUYS $.1 (cum. $3.2)
Though Stoker had a non-spectacular 'highest-per-screen-average of any movie' claim this weekend, I always wonder why genre efforts with famous stars don't open wider to begin with. I mean, seven theaters??? Sure this is an art horror film rather than a easy-sell slasher but remember when Bug opened wide and they pretended it didn't have critically acclaimed roots? It was hardly a hit but it made $3 million in its opening weekend and $7 million in total. If you hide Stoker for long enough, it won't even get to $7 million because the buzz will warn away the people who are scared of anything non-generic... which is obviously a lot of people if you look at box office receipts for horror films where interchangeable slashers tend to reign.
One unreported story of the box office this winter season is surely that the non-bankable Oscar bait failures like Quartet and Hyde Park on Hudson still somehow managed to earn non-embarrassing grosses. Especially Quartet which nearly equalled Beasts of the Southern Wild's take with about .1% of its publicity - the power of the Dowager Countess!?!
What did you watch this weekend? I took in Stoker, Jack the Giant Slayer and a couple of 1930s movies