George Clooney and Sandra Bullock will win the weekend box office with Gravity for the third consecutive week, in spite of a trio of high-profile new openings, including October’s only major horror release.Deadline estimates that the Alfonso Cuarón-directed sci-fi horror movie will bring in $31.5 million this weekend and be the only film to eclipse $20 million, with a tight race for second between critical darling Captain Phillips and the remake of Carrie, which had been expected to be #1 before a disappointing Friday set the stage for the weekend. At present, it seems as though Phillips will take the #2 spot with $15.7 million, but that’s so close to the projected $15.5 for Carrie that it’s really academic until final numbers are released on Monday.The #4 spot is expected to be filled by Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, coming in at $9.7 million, but that’s more or less a dead heat with the new release Escape Plan, which pairs Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger and is on pace to make $9.5 million. Totally out of the top five is the new Benedict Cumberbatch release The Fifth Estate, which is having a hard time connecting with audiences who seem to regard it as preachy and suspect that the point is to lionize Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, in spite of the fact that the filmmakers have been saying they tried to make the film as evenhanded as they could and that Assange himself didn’t like the script or want the film made.In any event, neither The Fifth Estate nor any of this week’s big openers managed better than 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, so it’s unlikely there will be too many people upset that they underperformed.Along with comic book movies Kick-Ass 2 and Bullet to the Head, Carrie and Escape Plan are the second big box office disappointments this year for both Chloe Grace-Moretz and Sylvester Stallone.
