Director Ridley Scott's science fiction film 'The Martian' slammed the box office over the weekend with a healthy $55 million. The film nearly surpassed the 2013 science fiction thriller film directed and produced by Alfonso Cuarón, 'Gravity,' which has the highest-grossing October debut in history.
The reviews that expressed great pleasure over the film strengthened Ridley Scott's release of The Martian, as the critics also called the movie among the director's best and heaped admiration on the performance of Matt Damon as an astronaut stranded on Mars.
The Martian marks the second best launch of Ridley Scott's career - behind only by $3 million compared to the $58 million debut of the 2001 American crime thriller film - Hannibal. The second best premiere for Matt Damon - as it trails the $69.3 million of his 'The Bourne Ultimatum.'
Phil Contrino, vice president and chief analyst at BoxOffice.com, stated, "The movie is going to hold up really well," Phil Contrino also said, "It's got everything. The Martian film has got suspense, action, heart, and humor, and the ending is really satisfying. Definitely, people will walk out of the movie houses and talk it up to their friends."
Most film analysts expected The Martian would do $45 million worth of business as it goes into the weekend. The Martian's numbers fall just short of "Gravity's" $55.8 million debut, however, there were a number of facts that hindered 'The Martian' from pushing over the Gravity. The Gravity film had the benefit of several Imax locations, which were being held solely for "The Walk of Sony, for a reason that it deprived "The Martian" of some healthy additional advantage. Where the Twentieth Century Fox backed the Gravity film with $108 million production and pushed the motion picture out to 3,831 theaters.
Chris Aronson, Fox's domestic distribution chief, said "There's been lots of talk about social media and the strong effect it has on movies," "It usually alludes to an impact that's negative, but that cuts both ways. It can also be positive and when you have these types of exits and people under 25 reacting like they are, the same people who are inclined to use social media, it means word-of-mouth is going to continue to soar."
