Weekend Box Office: 'Inferno' Burns Out

This weekend was a gloomy one at the box office, as the week's only new wide release failed to live up to expectations. That left the door open for last weekend's number-one movie to repeat in the top spot and the rest of the week's hold-overs to trail meekly behind.

Tom Hanks' thriller Inferno, a sequel to the hit The DaVinci Code, was expected to come out at number one even with a modest take in the vicinity of $20 million. The movie failed to perform up to even those limited expectations, pulling in only $15 million and confirming that the franchise based on Dan Brown's novels is finished, at least in the United States.

Last week's number one, Tyler Perry's Boo! A Madea Halloween, surged past Inferno, raking in $16.7 million. Although not exactly an impressive number, it represents a decent hold for the movie, which opened last weekend with $28.5 million.

The rest of the top five consisted of two more action thrillers, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back and The Accountant, and a horror sequel, Ouija: Origin of Evil. Of the top five movies, only The Accountant is an original title, and the lackluster performance of all the sequels, with the possible exception of Boo!, suggest that Hollywood's sequel-itis woes are continuing.