News

The third weekend in October is starting to become the new home for the most crowded frame of the year. Last year, four new movies opened in wide release (The Last Witch Hunter, Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, Rock the Kasbah and Jem and the Holograms, although none could beat The Martian, and two (Rock the Kasbah and Jem and the Holograms) didn't even crack the top 10. This year, four more new movies opened in wide release, Lionsgate's new Madea movie Boo! A Madea Halloween, Paramount's Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, Universal's Ouija: Origin of Evil and 20th Century Fox's Keeping Up With the Joneses. While all four new releases did crack the top 10, Boo! A Madea Halloween took the top spot with $27.6 million.

Box Office Mojo reports that, despite opening in the fewest theaters among new releases this weekend (2,260), it easily had the best per-screen average with $12,212. However, this...

This weekend is shaping up to be the busiest of the year so far at the box office, with four new movies hitting theaters in wide release. At one point, it was even supposed to be five new movies arriving wide, until Focus Features pushed its highly-anticipated A Monster Calls to an awards season friendly date of December 23. Last weekend's winner The Accountant will now square off against Paramount's Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, Universal's Ouija: Origin of Evil, 20th Century Fox's Keeping Up With the Joneses and Lionsgate's Boo! A Madea Halloween. We're predicting that the action-packed sequel Jack Reacher: Never Go Back will come out on top with $20.2 million.

Box Office Mojo reports that Jack Reacher: Never Go Back will debut in approximately 3,500 theaters, the highest roll-out of any other new release, with Ouija: Origins of Evil arriving in 3,100 theaters, Keeping Up With the Joneses debuting in 3,000 theaters and Boo!

Suspecting something is off with her new neighbor, Karen Gaffney (Isla Fisher) decides to spy on Natalie Jones (Gal Gadot) in a new clip from Keeping Up with the Joneses, in theaters October 21. What Karen doesn't quite realize is that Karen is an actual, real-life spy. After following her to a Bloomingdale's fitting room, Natalie surprises her by coming out of the fitting room wearing some skimpy lingerie.

20th Century Fox debuted this first clip on YouTube earlier today, arriving more than three months after the first trailer debuted. This spy comedy certainly will have quite the challenge when it opens in mid-October, during one of the most crowded weekends of the year. Keeping Up With the Joneses will hit theaters on October 21, going up against Paramount's Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, Universal's Ouija: Origins of Evil, Lionsgate's Boo! A Madea Halloween and PureFlix's I'm Not Ashamed.

The comedy follows...

Given the genre cred of Simon Pegg and the ascendance of Rosamund Pike, I approached Hector and the Search for Happiness with a certain level of curiosity. I was unfamiliar with the original novel by French author Francois Lelord and somehow missed the film’s release back in September. 20th Century Home Entertainment resolved that with the release today of the film on DVD.

In short, the film is about a psychiatrist, Hector (Pegg), who wants to shake up his tedious life. He doesn’t feel like he’s good at his job or able to help people, and laments to his girlfriend Clara (Pike) that he has yet to sample the very experience he recommends to his clients. As a result, he goes walkabout, seeking to taste life and find happiness. Then things happen.

It’s a charming premise and certainly well-trod territory but one expects, well, more from the story,...