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It was a busy news week in North America, so news outlets weren’t as interested in giving news articles up for a movie. Our collective hearts and minds were not on the movies this week, they were on what happened in Las Vegas, hurricanes, a tropical storm heading for New Orleans, baseball playoffs, and the start of hockey season, just to name a few. CNN was on more at my place than Netflix, and that’s saying something. While it wasn’t a September 11th kind of box office weekend, I do think it was affected, and it should have been. My heart goes out to all of those that lost loved ones in Vegas this week, but hopefully it serves as a reminder to love everyone that much more.

Finishing second is The Mountain Between Us, starring Idris Elba and Kate Winslet as passengers in a small airplane that have to walk to safety from snowy, dangerous conditions after the plane crashes. It's pretty serious stuff for early October, and the audience gave a collective shrug, giving The Mountain Between Us an opening weekend of $10.1 million. The Mountain cost Fox and partners a slim $35 million to make, so given an overseas-friendly cast and the domestic start, The Mountain may be my favorite to make its money back. Idris Elba needs it since The Dark Tower keeled over a few months back, and he continues to try to find relevance in the North America.

Third is top five stalwart, Stephen King’s It, which has been in cinemas for five weekends. After finishing in a virtual tie with American Made and the Kingsman sequel last weekend, It pulls away again this weekend. The not so happy clown earned another $9.7 million and fell 43% compared to last weekend, bringing that massive domestic total up to $304.9 million. It hit a major milestone on Saturday, reaching $300 million domestic, in only its 30th day of release. That total is joined by an overseas take that will cross the $300 mark within the next couple of days.

Finishing fourth is My Little Pony, which Lionsgate is distributing for a fee. I am not going to tell you that I know much about this toy, just that it has been around forever, and girls (and some adult men) love them. The toy-based flick got started on Friday with $3 million – a decent but not spectacular opening day for a film aimed at young girls (which means Friday night was not the busiest time in its run). Over the weekend, My Little Pony picked up $8.8 million after going out to only 2,528 venues, compared to Blade Runner’s 4,058 venues. Reviews, while slightly rotten, were better than I thought they would be, sitting at 57% fresh at the time of this writing, but with only 30 reviews counted. The more telling number on future success here is the Cinemascore which came in at an A-, the same score as Blade Runner 2049. Budget data seems to be unavailable, but if I had to guess at a budget I would say that I doubt it cost much, maybe $25 million, or the catering bill on the Blade Runner sequel. We will have to wait and see how it does overseas, but Hasbro and company shouldn’t get too bent out of shape on this one.

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