BOX OFFICE SUFFERS FORCE OF GRAVITY

There was no denying that the top three films at the box office performed very well, with Warner Bros. Gravity topping the list with a better-than-expected $43.2 million (its 23-percent drop in its second week was the smallest ever for a film that opened with more than $50 million). And Sony’s Captain Phillips also beat expectations with $25.7 million. Another Sony film, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, also had a relatively small drop in its third week to come away with $13.8 million. But that’s all she wrote. Open Road Films’ Machete Kills was fourth on the list, debuting with but $3.8 million; every other film on the top ten list averaged just $2.8 million. The upshot of such a top-loaded movie marketplace was that the overall box office was down 9 percent from a year ago, when Taken 2 held the top spot with $21.8 million. And, for the first time since the studios began releasing their summer blockbusters, the 2013 box office slipped behind 2012’s — by 2 percent. Attendance was down 5 percent.