Thor wins Friday box-office

Box office for Friday, November 8, 2013:

1.  Thor: The Dark World - $31.63 million - 1 day
2.  Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa - $3.37 ($70.82) - 15 days
3.  Last Vegas - $3.22 ($25.65) - 8 days
4.  Ender's Game - $2.91 ($36.66) - 8 days
5.  Free Birds - $2.6 ($21.62) - 8 days
6.  Gravity - $2.3 ($225.01) - 36 days
7.  12 Years a Slave - $1.85 ($12.6) - 22 days
8.  Captain Phillips - $1.6 ($86.78) - 29 days
9.  About Time - $1.5 ($3.02) - 8 days
10. Cloudy with Meatballs 2 - $.58 ($107.75) - 43 days

Thor: The Dark World should get $85-$90 million for the weekend. It will outperform the original Thor's opening of $60 million and it's another example of why November-December is just as good a release time as May-June-July.  In fact, the move of Star Wars Episode VII from May 22, 2015, to December 18, 2015, didn't just give the studio time to make sure the movie was made right, but Avatar became the highest-grossing movie of all time by opening in December.

Ender's Game had a disappointing drop. The year-long negative campaign against Orson Scott Card couldn't have helped, but the reviews, while good, aren't screaming "must-see."  It'll need to make its money back overseas.  Last Vegas looks like it'll have decent legs with older moviegoers, who aren't as "must see it opening weekend!" as younger ticket-buyers tend to be.  Free Birds is in freefall as families say to themselves, "Let's just wait for Disney's Frozen."

About Time expanded, but it's not going to be a hit.  Rachel McAdams romances tend to do best when her leading man is famous enough to get his name above the title next to hers (The Notebook, The Vow).

Random Movie Stuff - 11/1/13

- In light of the Ender's Game movie opening, and the publicity against its author Orson Scott Card, I present two great reads. One is a Grantland land piece by a Muslim sci-fi fan who resolves his feelings about loving Card's book with loathing his political views. The other is a Wired interview with Card himself.

- Quvenzhane Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild) will be starring in an updated remake of the musical Annie. Jamie Foxx will play Daddy Warbucks (renamed Benjamin Stacks) and Cameron Diaz will play Miss Hannigan.  It also co-stars Rose Byrne, Bobby Canavale, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and David Zayas. It's directed by Will Gluck (Friends with Benefits) and will open December 19, 2014.  Wallis can currently be seen in a small role in 12 Years A Slave.

- Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass, Savages) will play Quicksilver in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Meanwhile Evan Peters (American Horror Story) will play Quicksilver in X-Men: Days of Future Past.

- Patrick Hughes (Red Hill) is directing The Expendables 3. It opens August 15, 2014, and will star Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, and newbies Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Wesley Snipes, Antonio Banderas, Kelsey Grammer, Kellen Lutz, and UFC's Ronda Rousey.

- Christopher McQuarrie (Jack Reacher) will direct a live-action Star Blazers movie. He will also be directing Mission Impossible 5 starring Tom Cruise.

- A few months ago it was announced that Gina Carano (Haywire) and Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica, Riddick) would star in an Expendables spinoff. Tentatively titled ExpendaBelles, the producers are also pursuing Meryl Streep, Cameron Diaz, Milla Jovovich, Linda Hamilton, Sharni Vinson and Pam Grier. They're looking for a female director as well.

- Mark Bomback (The Wolverine) has been hired to do some polishing to the Fifty Shades of Grey screenplay by Kelly Marcel (Saving Mr. Banks). It'll star Dakota Johnson (21 Jump Street) and Jamie Dornan (ABC's Once Upon A Time).

Random Movie Stuff

- David Koepp (Spider-Man, Jurassic Park) will be rewriting the next Jack Ryan movie, to star Chris Pine (Unstoppable, Star Trek) and to be directed by Jack Bender (Lost).

- Gavin Hood (X-men Origins: Wolverine) in talks to direct Ender's Game for Summit Entertainment. The sci-fi classic from Orson Scott Card has been in development forever, but maybe this time it'll happen. (I remember when The Phantom Menace opened, Card speculated Jake Lloyd could play Ender.)

- Quentin Tarantino has completed his next script, a spaghetti Western called Django Unleashed, and Christoph Waltz will co-star.

- Jeff Bridges is replacing Zack Galifianakis in R.I.P.D. It's a ghost comedy starring Ryan Reynolds.

- Chris Hemsworth might become a big star, so he might be happy that another one of this limbo titles has found a distributor. Lionsgate is picking up Cabin in the Woods, a horror film co-starring Richard Jenkins. That leaves the Red Dawn remake the last Hemsworth/MGM title collecting dust on the shelf.

- There are 95 sequels in the works.