Box Office: Four Newcomers Bomb, ‘Steve Jobs’ Can't Load Properly In Wide & ‘The Martian’ Takes #1 Again

Ooof, it was a particularly terrible frame for new releases this weekend. Of the four new wide releases only one picture — Lionsgate’s “The Last Witch Hunter,” which wasn’t even widely screened for press — cracked the top five and only one other movie of the newcomers cracked the top 10. On 3,000 plus screens “The Last Witch Hunter” could only score a soft $10 million opening. A B- Cinemascore isn’t a rousing gesture of audience confidence and it shows once more, like many stars, actors like Vin Diesel aren’t huge outside their franchises (in his case “The Fast & The Furious”).

All the other new entries largely fell flat on their face, Paramount’s “Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension" faring the best of the rest with an $8.2 million opening, but an extremely lackluster C Cinemascore. The fifth series in this found-footage entry, it seems that audiences have tired of the franchise and it’s good timing as ‘Ghost Dimension’ is apparently supposed to be the final...