There was no shortage of drama on the screen over the weekend, with new releases The Girl on the Train and The Birth of a Nation both enjoying top-ten premieres — but one film had a much better time of it than its counterpart.
Director Tate Taylor’s adaptation of Paula Hawkins’ best-selling novel The Girl on the Train finished atop the weekend box office with a $24.6 million debut, despite relatively poor reviews from professional critics and general audiences. The tense drama starring Emily Blunt cut short the one-week reign of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children at the top of the domestic box-office rankings and bumped Tim Burton’s fantasy film down to second place.
The scenario was flipped for Nate Parker’s slave-rebellion drama The Birth of a Nation, which earned a mere $7.1 million — well below expectations for the festival darling — despite earning overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics and general audiences.
| # | Title | Weekend | U.S. Total | Worldwide Total |
| 1. | The Girl on the Train | $24.6M | $24.6M | $41.1M |
| 2. | Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children | $15M | $51M | $145M |
| 3. | Deepwater Horizon | $11.7M | $38.5M | $66.3M |
| 4. | The Magnificent Seven | $9.1M | $75.9M | $134.6M |
| 5. | Storks | $8.4M | $50.1M | $106.1M |
| 6. | The Birth of a Nation | $7.1M | $7.1M | $7.1M |
| 7. | Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life | $6.9M | $6.9M | $6.9M |
| 8. | Sully | $5.2M | $113.4M | $167.1M |
| 9. | Masterminds | $4.1M | $12.7M | $12.7M |
| 10. | Queen of Katwe | $1.6M | $5.3M | $5.3M |
The weekend also featured a landmark moment for Finding Dory, Pixar’s wildly successful, animated sequel to Finding Nemo, which crossed the $1 billion mark worldwide. The film is just the second Pixar project to pass that mark (after 2010’s Toy Story 3), and the third Disney release to earn at least $1 billion worldwide this year alone (after Captain America: Civil War and Zootopia). Finding Dory now ranks as the highest-grossing animated film of all time domestically with $484 million in U.S. theaters as of October 9, and the fifth highest-grossing animated film of all time worldwide.
The upcoming week isn’t expected to be a big one at the box office, with Ben Affleck’s thriller The Accountant the favorite to win the weekend, and the big-screen adaptation of the Max Steel toy franchise also hitting theaters.
