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APEX Hollywood Shortlist: The Martian Invades Box Office With Stellar $55M Debut

October 5, 2015  | Written by Tomas Romero

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APEX Insight: The Martian blasts past last week’s first place finisher Hotel Transylvania 2 to secure the second biggest October opening in Hollywood history.

It seems only fitting that the same week that NASA’s Curiosity Rover discovers evidence of liquid water on Mars, Ridley Scott’s epic sci-fi adventure yarn The Martian rockets to the top of the box office with an estimated $55M. And though Martian just missed topping the October box office record of $55.7M held by the similarly-themed Gravity, I doubt there will be much liquid water shed on the Fox lot over a killer opening weekend like that.

Based on the self-published novel of the same name by first-time writer Andy Weir, Martian stars a gaggle of former Oscar winners and nominees including Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Jeff Daniels, but the film’s real secret weapon is their crazy-compelling marketing campaign. BRING HIM HOME indeed! So awesome.

Also opening exclusively on 448 IMAX screens nationwide (before rolling out wider next week) was the 3D biographical drama The Walk which scooped up an estimated $1.5M. The latest award-season contender from Oscar-winning Forrest Gump helmer Robert Zemekis, Walk stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as French high-wire artist Phillippe Petit, who memorably walked on a wire suspended between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. Already generating major Oscar buzz for Gordon-Levitt – who learned to walk on a high wire in eight days and became fluent in French during filming – Walk is said to be so realistic that some viewers have actually thrown up while watching it. But hey, people threw up (and fainted!) during Pulp Fiction too and look how well that turned out.

On the indie front, the hard-hitting true-life drama Freeheld opened in limited release in five theaters with an estimated $40K or $8,000 per screen. Starring last year’s Academy Award winner for Best Actress Julianne Moore (Still Alice) as a New Jersey police lieutenant with terminal cancer fighting for the right to leave her pension to her female lover, Freeheld is the stuff Oscar campaigns are made of. Featuring much-buzzed about supporting turns from former Oscar-nominees Ellen Page, Michael Shannon and Steve Carrell, Freeheld, is based on the Oscar-winning Documentary (Short Subject) of the same name. Come to think of it, The Walk was inspired by an Oscar-winning documentary as well (2008’s Man on Wire, which took home the prize for Best Documentary Feature in 2009) so, rock on, real life!

Weekend Box Office Estimates: October 2 – 4, 2015