The Martian Tops Friday Box Office With $18 Million

Ridley Scott's The Martian, starring Matt Damon as an astronaut stranded on Mars, blasted off with $18M on Friday ($2.5M from Thursday previews included) and is now on a trajectory to challenge Gravity's $55.8M October opening record. How do you like them apples?! As of right now, analysts predict The Martian will safely land somewhere in the $55M range and could get an extra boost from word-of-mouth as audiences bestowed it with an 'A' CinemaScore, as compared to Gravity's 'A-' score. Adding fuel to the record-breaking possibility is the fact that The Martian's $18M Friday is slightly better than Gravity's $17.48M opening day.

Last weekend's champ, Hotel Transylvania 2, took second-place on Friday with $7.46M and is expected to finish with $31.7M for the weekend. That'll push its 10-day domestic total to $89.3M.

Denis Villeneuve's Mexican drug cartel film Sicario, starring Emily Blunt (Edge of Tomorrow), slid into third on Friday with $4.2M and will end the weekend with $11.8M. After three weeks, it'll have a domestic total of $14.8M.

Meanwhile, Robert Zemeckis' The Walk is tripping over its own feet in tenth-place with only $1.7M for its debut weekend. Though, it is only playing in 448 theaters. Still, it's not a pretty figure.