Box Office

YOUR WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Thor: The Dark World held onto the #1 spot in its sophomore frame this weekend and will have recouped its $170m budget by Thanksgiving. But the real superheroes of the latest box-office stats are the aging but still ridiculously beautiful stars of The Best Man Holiday. The African-American dramedy sequel, the only debut in the Top 20, scared up about $30.6m, nearly twice what it cost to make; word of mouth suggests Malcolm D. Lee's follow-up to 1999's The Best Man will put quite a few more bucks in Universal's stocking this season. RCA's R&B-flavored holiday ST to the flick is also Top 10 at iTunes. Meanwhile, Bad Grandpa has pulled in more than six times its budget ($90m+) in a month, and #6 Gravity is orbiting the quarter-billion mark. Outside the Top 10, Dallas Buyers Club rode its ongoing Oscar buzz to a 180% increase as it added 149 theaters on its way to wide release; the hard-hitting drama is now commanding a potent $9,701 per-screen average. Also bowing was Alexander Payne's critically acclaimed Bruce Dern vehicle, Nebraska, which made $140k on four screens.

1. Thor: The Dark World Disney $38.5m (-55%) 3,841/$10,011 avg. (week 2)
2. The Best Man Holiday Universal $30.6m 2,024/$15,115 avg. (debut)
3. Last Vegas CBS $8.8m (-19.8%) 3,237/$2,734 avg. (week 3)
4. Free Birds Relativity $8.3m (-25.3%) 3,510/$2,365 avg. (week 3)
5. Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa Paramount $7.7m (-32.3%) 3,190/$2,404 avg. (week 4)

In other cinema news, UMPG's 3D holiday extravaganza The Spleef That Saved Christmas is gonna be way awesome. (11/18a)