Sunday AM first write thru after 5TH UPDATE 1:11 AM: Refresh for updates Last night the box office had a huge case of Saturday night fever with the top 11 films posting surges over Friday by an average of 61%. Late night receipts showed 20th Century Fox’s The Martian grossing an estimated $56M over three days, putting it on course to be the highest opening film ever in October. However, this morning, some bean counters are scaling back those projections. 20th Century Fox is calling the weekend for the Ridley Scott film at $55M, while others see it busting past the $55.8M made by Warner Bros.’ Gravity two years ago. As the old line goes: It all boils down to Sunday’s hold. Currently, Martian is the second best debut for October, Scott, and Matt Damon.Fox saw that they had the goods with Martian and moved it away from its Thanksgiving launch date. While it’s a great time to blast off a film, there’s those two weeks following the holiday where business gets clunky. Why slow a great film with that play period? By flipping Martian to this weekend, Fox has the entire October period in front of it to dominate before Sony’s Spectre shows up.Said 20th Century Fox domestic distribution chief Chris Aronson, “My hat is off to Ridley Scott and everyone at Scott Free for getting this movie finished in time. When you move up a movie as much as we did, that’s not a small feat. It’s an extraordinary achievement and it’s remarkable given the quality of this motion picture.”
