Summit
Entertainment’s great hope that they found their own Twilight or Hunger Games tentpole movie
series fell way short of the mark.

Their Ender’s Game was No.1 this weekend, but making
what’s considered to be a something of a disappointment with an opening $28 million. Compare that to what insiders are already predicting
that Catching Fire, the second
installment of the Hunger Games series which opens on Nov. 22, could gross as much
as $150 million its opening weekend.

Why Ender’s Game, which is based on a 1985 popular book written
by Orson Scott Card and spawned a
series of sequels, didn’t do the blockbuster business that was hoped, is anybody’s guess.

There was some talk about starting a boycott against the
film due to Card’s own extreme right wing, Tea Partyish political views in which
he has compared President Obama to “Hitler” and “Stalin” and that Obama was planning to start a “national police force of young
out-of-work urban men.” (Sounds like Card has watched Birth of a Nation one too many times. Which make me wonder what Viola Davis, who’s in Ender’s Game, feels
about being in the film?) However no organized boycott ever materialized.

Meanwhile Disney/Marvel’s
Thor: The Dark World which opens here in the U.S. this Friday and will, of course, be No.1 next weekend, opened with
a very impressive $109.4 million overseas in 38 countries this weekend making it the fourth largest
international opening this year.

Jackass’
Bad Grandpa held on very solidly for a second place finish
this weekend.

And continuing in strength is 12 Years a Slave which took in $4.6
million in 410 screens, an increase from 123 theaters last week, with total
so far of over $8.7 million an impressive
figure in only after 17 days in limited release.