‘Sully’ soars over ‘Blair Witch,’ ‘Bridget’ at box office

This image released by Lionsgate shows Callie Hernandez in a scene from “Blair Witch“.

“Blair Witch” was produced for a very modest budget of roughly $5 million, so, even on the low end of predictions, the movie – about a group of friends who return to a haunted forest in search of a young man’s sister – is still positioned for profitability.

Horror flick “Blair Witch”, a follow-up of the 1999 “The Blair Witch Project”, opened in second place at the box office at $9.7 million.

Oliver Stone’s Snowden, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as infamous NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, wasn’t as much of a disappointment in debuting to $8 million, since it hadn’t been expected to do much beyond $10 million. The filmmakers had hoped the threequel would match My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, which opened to $17.8 million domestically earlier this year.

From a quality perspective, following the much-loved original, Edge of Reason was dismissed by critics and audiences alike, yet reviews for Bridget Jones’s Baby were strong heading into the weekend, scoring a “Certified Fresh” rating at RottenTomatoes followed by a “B+” CinemaScore from opening day audiences. This includes a #1 opening in the United Kingdom and Ireland with $11.3 million, the largest opening for a romantic comedy ever in the United Kingdom and the biggest September opening weekend ever in the market.

In general, it’s been a quiet start to September compared to past year. Instead it finished with the worst opening of the franchise despite opening in 1,316 more theaters than the 2001 original, which opened with $10.7 million, and almost 2,400 more theaters than 2004’s Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, which opened with $8.6 million.

Fortunately, Bridget Jones isn’t just a domestic play. Shailene Woodley, Zachary Quinto, Melissa Leo and Tom Wilkinson also star in the film, which cost a pricey $40 million to make, a pricey number for an independent film. Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars in the title role.

The film, playing in 2,443 theaters, is being distributed in the U.S.by Open Road Films. The movie is about a very known US Airways Flight 1549 and its responsible pilot, Chesley Sullenberger which is also called as “Sully”. Open Road distributed last year’s Oscar-winning Spotlight. The horror film only captured roughly $9.6 million on its opening weekend — about $11 million less than forecast.

Instead of earning in the midteen millions, “Baby” garnered just $8.2 million over the weekend.