Weekend Box Office: 'Captain Phillips' and 'Gravity' Are Winners

During the long dreary weekends of summer, it might have seem liked good-news-filled weekends for movie studios were gone forever. This weekend, however, was nothing but good news, at least for the makers of the top two new wide releases.

The first dose of good news was for "Gravity." After setting a new box-office record for October releases during its opening weekend last week, the blockbuster took in another estimated $44.3 million this weekend. That shows remarkable staying power—its decline in tickets sales between week one and week two was less than that of any other non-holiday release in history—and it boosts the film's domestic gross to more than $123 million so far.

Perhaps the best news of the weekend, though, was for the Tom Hanks thriller "Captain Phillips."

It stood up to the competition from "Gravity" quite impressively, and its estimated $26-million gross beat expectations by a wide margin. It also received an "A" CinemaScore from viewers, so word of mouth will no doubt help it to perform well over time.

But the news wasn't all good. "Machete Kills," the week's third wide release, took in only $3.8 million, which is only about a third the opening-weekend take of its predecessor, "Machete," and one of the worst first weekends ever for a movie that opened as widely as "Machete Kills" did.

It's worth noting that audiences for both "Gravity" and "Captain Phillips" skewed relatively older than audiences for the big-budget flops of the summer—and for "Machete Kills" for that matter—suggesting that studios might be looking to the wrong demographic for big hits.