BOX OFFICE: ‘DOCTOR STRANGE’ CASTS A TIMELY SPELL ON THEATERS

There’s nothing strange about Marvel’s latest dominating the box office this week: anticipation was high for Benedict Cumberbatch to strap on the Cloak of Levitation and given its strong reviews and enormous $85 million haul from just 3 days, Doctor Strange lived up to its hype and then some. Although Doctor Strange is only Marvel’s 10th biggest opening to date, it’s the biggest for a single character debut from them since 2008’s Ironman and once again shows their vice-like grip over the genre isn’t going to be loosening anytime soon.

While this is obviously fantastic news for an ailing box office, Doctor Strange also pushed its distributors, Disney, over $6 billion for the year so far, which is the first time they’ve ever achieved that sum in a calendar year. In terms of Strange‘s overall run, it should be looking at finishing at around $250 million for its domestic run. Interestingly, even if it surpasses that figure handsomely, the acclaimed Doctor Strange will most likely still fall short of the critically mauled Suicide Squad‘s $325 million domestic gross, which just goes to show that goodwill from critics can only get you so far in the comic genre.

And it wasn’t just Marvel Studios bringing the box office back from the dead this weekend as Dreamwork’s Trolls surpassed all financial expectations to take an impressive $45 million in the same time period. Indeed, the top two films this week took some 66% more in revenue than the entire of last week’s overall gross and have provided quite the defibrillator to last month’s somber revenues.

Friday’s other new wide release, Hacksaw Ridge, saw a healthy return of nearly $15 million, which is slightly above what was predicted for the wartime drama. Glowing reviews abounded for the film before Friday and apparently it was trending very positively with older audiences over the weekend (it’s currently tracking an “A+” from Over-50’s on Cinemascore). If it wasn’t for a certain Mel Gibson calling the shots as the director on it, then Hacksaw Ridge could have easily been considered an early Oscar contender, but it’s unlikely that Hollywood is ready to let bygones be bygones just yet.

Finishing in fourth was Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween dropping off slightly less than expected with nearly $8 million and once again demonstrating a staying power that most didn’t expect from it. Speaking of which, a movie that desperately needed some staying power was Sony’s Inferno after its failure to launch last weekend but it could only muster a measly $6 million after a 58% drop off. Probably the only task now harder than getting Dan Brown’s Robert Langdon back on the big screen after this unqualified box office and critical disaster will be finding someone who cares that the franchise has seemingly been extinguished once and for all.

Looking forward in November, things are looking very healthy indeed with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them bringing J.K. Rowling’s magic touch back to the big screen in two weeks time followed a week later by Brad Pitt starring in Robert Zemeckis’ Allied, which is likely to thrive on the recent tabloid furore over Pitt’s divorce due to the gossip surrounding him and his co-star, Marion Cotillard. But next up will be the hotly-tipped sci-fi film Arrival, for which we will have a full review of on these very pages tomorrow.