'The Walk' Trips At Box Office; 'The Martian' Nears Record

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and writer-director Robert Zemeckis had a serious stumble. “The Walk,” a 3-D dramatization of the real-life exploits of tightrope walker Philippe Petit, brought in just $1.9 million over the course of a three-day weekend, despite a strong critical reception and the promise of a visceral theater experience. A number of theatergoers reported experiencing vertigo during the film's climactic sequence, and a number of people attending early screenings vomited.

That total deserves to be regarded with a grain of salt -- it opened on just a few hundred 3-D Imax screens across the country, far fewer than the more than 3,800 theaters that were showing “The Martian” -- but it will need to rebound strongly if it hopes to recoup its $35 million production budget. The film opens more widely next weekend.

Meanwhile, the stars aligned for Matt Damon and 20^th Century Fox. “The Martian,” their highly anticipated film about an astronaut who is accidentally marooned on Mars, raked in an estimated $55 million over the weekend, less than a million dollars shy of the all-time record for a film opening in October, set by "Gravity."

The film also hauled in an estimated $45.2 million in some 49 international markets, though those markets did not include prime box office territories like Japan, German or China, the world’s second-largest market for movies. A number of those territories will not see the film’s release until February of next year, according to a report in Box Office Mojo.

“Hotel Transylvania 2,” which claimed the top spot on the box office last week, scared up another $33 million, bringing its total box office receipts to $90.5 million through just two weeks. It is on pace to surpass its predecessor, “Hotel Transylvania,” which managed to bring in more than $148 million when it was released in 2012. The 3-D animated film about a hotel run by Dracula features Adam Sandler voicing the leading role.

The gritty "Sicario," a police drama set in Mexico that stars Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin, had the third-best showing of the weekend, taking in $12 million.