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From the moment Pierre Morel’s Taken unlocked a very particular set of skills in Liam Neeson, the actor’s résumé has been a roller-coaster ride of triumphant highs (The Grey) and disappointing lows (Takens 2 and 3). But a patchy record has in no way cooled Neeson’s interest in the action genre, as he’ll soon be back, back, back, as an unassuming insurance salesman for The Commuter.

Pitched as North by Northwest meets Strangers on a Train, Jaume Collet-Serra’s high-speed thriller was originally slated for a release in October, but we now have confirmation that The Commuter‘s journey won’t begin in earnest until January 12th, 2018. That’s a date it currently shares with Paramount’s animated flick Sherlock Gnomes, White Boy Rick and The Maze Runner: The Death Cure, which was hit with a delay of its own following Dylan O’Brien’s serious set accident.

With the passing of every year comes the arrival and departure of an unfathomable number of films from theatres around the globe where they earned either a lot of or precious little screen time, depending on the circumstances. Notwithstanding smaller budgeted, independent-minded motion pictures that find unexpectedly impressive legs to remain in theatrical exhibition for longer than most would have foreseen (surely including the exhibitors themselves in many cases), it is safe to argue that for the most part, the movies that are awarded the most screenings rooms and screening times are the big budget blockbusters.

There exists a myriad of reasons why it often feels so terribly easy to aim criticisms at these so-called motion picture events. Some of them are related to the perceived quality, others have to do what certain cinephiles with attuned tastes expect from their movie going experiences as patrons. Movies for which so much...

Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman were terrific as a long-married couple who overcame adversity in The Railway Man but Australian audiences aren.t buying their latest on-screen pairing.

Before I Go to Sleep casts Kidman as a 40-year-old woman who wakes up every day with a blank memory. Firth is her husband who tells her they.ve been married for 14 years and Mark Strong is her neuro-psychologist who encourages her to keep a daily video diary so she can help rebuild her life.

The thriller directed by Rowan Joffe, adapted from S. J. Watson.s best-selling novel, may not have sent audiences to sleep but relatively few bothered to turn up as the film fetched $418,000 on a very wide 194 screens.

Nationwide takings dropped by 16% to $9.7 million as none of the other newcomers much enthused cinemagoers, according to Rentrak.s weekend estimates. Distributors say the market is soft and especially shallow below the top three titles.

After a welcome reprieve in August, the 2014 box office woes returned in September.Overall domestic box office totaled just $513 million, which is down 11 percent from last year. More importantly, this was the lowest-grossing month at the box office in six years (dating back to September 2008).The abnormally low total can be chalked up to a dearth of content early in the month. As Above/So Below and The November Man were weak late August releases, and the major studios entirely avoided the first weekend of September; the only movie to open wide on that date was Freestyle Releasing's The Identical, which has taken in less than $3 million total. By the time the studios got back in to the game on September 12th, the damage was already done.The month's top performer was The Maze Runner, which tallied $60.2 million through its first 12 days. The young-adult adaptation started with a strong $32.5 million,...

Update, Monday, 1:44 Pm: The Equalizer came in beneath Sony’s estimates, bringing in $34.1 million for the three-day weekend, easily running over the other newcomer, the animated The Boxtrolls. However, the Denzel Washington film is likely to get side-swiped next weekend by the David Fincher-directed mystery thriller Gone Girl, which is already tracking well for an expected big weekend haul for Fox. Based on the best-selling book by Gillian Flynn, the Ben Affleck-starrer may end up cannibalizing the audience away from Denzel. Gone Girl opens in 50 markets around the world next weekend, too, giving it the first wide international rollout of the fall.

Meanwhile, Focus Features’ The Boxtrolls ended up with a $17.2M take as the first animated fare since June to grace theaters. It gets another weekend before Disney drops Alexander And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day on October 10. Heck of a title and...

Nothing all that new to report that wasn't previously discussed yesterday morning as this weekend's estimates were pretty much spot on. Antoine Fuqua's The Equalizer starring Denzel Washington took the #1 spot to the tune of $34.1 million, which was about $900,000 less than estimated, but that's no huge surprise. Opening day audiences gave the film an "A-" CinemaScore, which could make next weekend's drop interesting, though facing off against David Fincher's Gone Girl and Annabelle could be tough given there are so many R-rated movies today's movie going audiences can support at once. In second was last weekend's #1 film, The Maze Runner, which dropped only 46.4% to $17.4 million, which is far better than we saw from Liam Neeson's A Walk Among the Tombstones, which fell 67.1% and finished its sophomore weekend with $4.1 million. The weekend's other new release was Laika's The BoxTrolls, which earned the stop motion animation studio its highest opening to date at $17.2 million.

The Equalizer has debuted at number one in the Us box office.

The Denzel Washington crime-thriller made $35m during it's first weekend in theatres, knocking The Maze Runner down to the second spot with $17.5m.

The Boxtrolls debuts at number three with a little over $17m, while This is Where I Leave You falls to fourth place.

Dolphin Tale 2 takes $4.8m and stays at number five, and No Good Deed falls to six with $4.6m.

Liam Neeson's A Walk Among the Tombstones drops down to seven with $4.2m, while Guardians of the Galaxy falls to eighth place with weekend earnings of nearly $3.8m.

Let's Be Cops takes ninth place with $1.5m, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles completes the top 10 with $1.4m.

The Us weekend box office top 10 for September 28 (studio estimates, all figures in Us dollars) is as follows:

1. The Equalizer - $35,000,000

2. The Maze Runner - $17,500,000

3. The Boxtrolls...

Lots of high fives at the Sony offices today, as their don't-mess-with-Denzel-Washington revenge flick The Equalizer walked away with a $35 million opening. "We’re really, really happy, but we were very bullish on the movie," says Rory Bruer, Sony's President of Worldwide Distribution. "It’s a film that we all love and it just delivers in a big way. Denzel couldn’t be more terrific in the role – you can’t take your eyes off this guy." The movie's success—director Antoine Fuqua's best opening to date, Washington's third best—is a testament to audience's appreciation of Washington in tough lone wolf roles.

The Equalizer got off to a strong start on Friday, while The Boxtrolls had one of the best stop-motion animation debuts ever.At 3,236 theaters, The Equalizer opened to an impressive $12.6 million. That ranks third all-time for star Denzel Washington behind American Gangster ($15.9 million) and Safe House ($13.6 million). It's also well above last Summer's 2 Guns ($9.9 million), which had a strong co-lead in Mark Wahlberg. For the weekend, The Equalizer is on track to gross at least $35 million.The Maze Runner added $5.18 million on Friday, which is off 54 percent from opening day. That's a very solid hold for a young-adult adaptation; in comparison, Divergent fell 64 percent at the same point. For the weekend, The Maze Runner will likely earn around $17 million.Opening at 3,464 theaters, The Boxtrolls earned an estimated $4.93 million on Friday. That's above fellow Laika Animation titles ParaNorman ($4.6 million) and Coraline ($4.5 million). If The Boxtrolls follows the same pattern as past family-friendly September releases,...

Denzel Washington and director Antoine Fuqua continue to make an unstoppable duo. The Equalizer, starring a fierce Washington as a former black ops agent drawn back into the game by a troubled prostitute (Chloe Grace Moretz) who’s targeted by Russian gangsters, raked in an impressive $12.6 million on Friday. Early bets from Sony low-balled first weekend numbers in the high 20-millions range. Estimates now suggest the movie will pull in closer to $36 million by weekend’s end, buoyed by Washington’s reliable charisma and A- CinemaScore reviews. A sequel is already in the works, which would be the first of...

Denzel Washington is gearing up to show his box office might once more as The Equalizer debuts in 3,234 theaters, including IMAX and other premium large format screens, starting with early Thursday-night showings. The R-rated Columbia Pictures action thriller, which re-teams Washington with his Training Day director Antoine Fuqua, will easily win the weekend, beating out last week’s champ The Maze Runner and this week’s other new opener, the family-friendly The Boxtrolls.

Here’s how things might play out:

1. The Equalizer — $30 million

Denzel Washington plays a former black ops agent who’s attempting to lead a quiet life until...

A new young-adult franchise is born as The Maze Runner posts the biggest opening we’ve seen in over a month and one of the biggest ever for September. The Maze Runner started with $32.5 million, the 6th biggest for the month of September, and only a few hours later Fox announced a release date for […]

Read Box Office: The Maze Runner Opens Ahead of Liam Neeson on Filmonic.

The weekend's box office actuals are in and The Maze Runner estimates were spot on as the new franchise starter brought in $32.5 million this weekend and has already seen the sequel, The Scorch Trials, receive a 2015 release date, less than a year from now. On a reported $34 million budget, the film has already brought in over $70 million worldwide. In second, and dipping a bit from estimates, is Liam Neeson's A Walk Among the Tombstones. Estimated at $13.1 million, the film finished with $12.75 million, which isn't much, but for points in the reader predictions challenge it can mean a lot. Finishing third and also dipping slightly from estimates is the ensemble dramedy This is Where I Leave You, which finished with $11.55 million. The weekend's other new release that was generating a lot of attention was Kevin Smith's Tusk, which opened in 602 theaters and only managed $846,831 for a $1,407 per theater average.

Amir here, back to weekly box office reporting duty. Coming back from Tiff, I tried to catch up a bit today with all the sales numbers I’d missed since August. It turns out the biggest bit of news was... the release of Forrest Gump IMAX??? Really, September? Is that the best you can do? Turgid stuff.

On the bright side, with awards season now slowly getting into full gear, we can look forward to the highbrow films the studios have been withholding from all us all year, starting with this weekend’s... The Maze Runner and This Is Where I Leave You? Damn it September; get your act together!

big name casts don't always make big time movies

Wide Release Box Office

01 The Maze Runner $32.5 New Review

02 A Walk Among The Tombstones $13.1 New

03 This Is Where I Leave You $11.8 New

04 No Good Deed $10.2 (cum. $40.1)

05 Dolphin Tale 2 $9 (cum. $27)

Maze...

When the box office hit a dull spot two weeks ago, it could be supposed that there was nowhere to go but up, and the latest crop of new releases helped in that department. While not all were critical darlings (Jason Bateman’s This is Where I Leave You being one of the more obvious ones), they still generated enough to make this an even bigger weekend than last. The Maze Runner made an excellent start, nearly making back its costs with an estimated $32.5 million, while the new Liam Neeson thriller A Walk Among the Tombstones’ estimated $13.1 million may not have been quite as impressive, it is still a relatively good start for a budgeted $28 million film. This is Where I Leave You is also off to a relatively good start despite its reviews with an estimated $11.9 million on a $19.8 million budget.

No Good Deed, the first-place winner from last week,...

The newest member of the young adult adaptions, The Maze Runner, brought in an estimated $32.5 million this weekend to take the top spot which more than doubled the second place newcomer A Walk Among the Tombstones. Liam Neeson as a badass can’t be tired already? I assume it was from a lack of advertising because I didn’t even know it was out this weekend until Friday. The Jason Bateman and Tine Fey dramedy, This Is Where I Leave You, was struggling back in third place.

Kevin Smith’s Tusk took in an estimated $886,000 from 602 initial locations; with an lack of serious push behind it and failure to reach $1 million, it’s not looking good for the first entry in the “true north trilogy”. That’s September for you; can we be saved next week?

Next week: The Boxtrolls, The Equalizer

Title Weekend Total 1. Neighbors $51,070,000 $51 2. Amazing Spider-Man 2 $37,200,000 $147.9 3. The...

"The Hunger Games" and "Divergent" just got a new partner in the field of successful young adult novel adaptations.

"The Maze Runner" pulled in a very solid $32.5 million domestic opening over the weekend, easily taking the top spot at not just the American box-office but in fifty other markets around the world. Globally it managed an $81.5 million debut, not bad for a film that cost only a fraction of most young adult novel adaptations.

The Liam Neeson-led R-rated crime thriller "A Walk Among the Tombstones" came in a distant second with $13.1 million - only half the opening of his PG-13 in-flight thriller "Non-Stop" from earlier this year. The film isn't expected to fare well in coming weeks.

The ensemble comedy "This is Where I Leave You" also disappointed with an $11.9 million debut and poor reviews. In moderate release, Kevin Smith's "Tusk" premiered to just $886,000 across 600 screens - another disappointment.

Dystopic Ya thriller The Maze Runner dashed past the other new releases this weekend for a $32.5 million gross. The result was impressive enough for Fox to announce that they're releasing a sequel, Maze Runner: Scorch Trials (it's a trilogy, and there's a prequel too) around this time next year. The weekend's other new releases fared poorly in comparison: Liam Neeson's A Walk Among the Tombstones brought in $13.1 million and the Jason Bateman comedy This is Where I Leave You took in $11.8 million. Last weekend's box office champs — No Good Deed and Dolphin Tale 2 — rounded out the top five with $10.2 million and $9 million respectively.

It was expected the new young adult adaptation The Maze Runner would open at #1, but it wasn't clear if it would end up around $30 million as the studio was softly estimating or $40 million as some prognosticators thought it might excel to. Well, the verdict is in and it's on the lower end of the spectrum, bringing in and estimated $32.5 million, though opening day audiences seemed to like what the saw, giving it an "A-" CinemaScore. I never would have expected Liam Neeson's A Walk Among the Tombstones to do too well so while the film's $13.1 million will be looked at as weak compared to his previous actioners, you have to remember this isn't Taken or Non-Stop. Tombstones is more adult and while it's a little sloppy, it really shouldn't be compared to his PG-13 actioners as this is clearly more dark noir rather than glossy, bang-bang stuff, which is...

Light week of movie watching this week as I'm celebrating my first wedding anniversary this weekend in Whistler, but I did end up seeing the new Liam Neeson movie A Walk Among the Tombstones and at home I saw Dumb and Dumber and watched half of Top Gun. Otherwise, I will have to get back into full swing this coming week as I really need to get back to my "Best Movies" columns and I've also got a lot of people that wrote in wanting to write for the site and some great candidates are bubbling to the top, possibly opening up the site to a few new voices in the coming days. With my week out of the way, let's hear from you. What did you watch this weekendc Any of you manage to see The Guest or The Dropc I chose Tombstones over The Maze Runner, the latter...

“The Maze Runner” turned a best-selling young adult novel into box office gold — and a new film franchise — this weekend. The sci-fi saga, powered to a teen-fueled $32.5 million box office, triumphed in its debut. The weekend's two other wide openers were rated R and targeted an entirely different audience in mature moviegoers, but couldn't keep up with “Maze Runner.” Liam Neeson‘s “A Walk Among the Tombstones” finished a distant second with $13.1 million and the family comedy “This Is Where I Leave You” was third with $11.8 million. Last week's No. 1 film, the thriller “No Good Deed,”...

The Maze Runner jumped out to the front of the pack on Friday with $11.25 million. Otherwise, business was relatively quiet: A Walk Among the Tombstones and This is Where I Leave You fell a bit short, while No Good Deed and Dolphin Tale 2 fell hard going in to their second weekends.Playing at 3,604 theaters, The Maze Runner debuted to more than twice as much as recent young-adult misses like The Giver ($4.75 million) and The Host ($5.3 million). Still, it only opened to around half as much as March's Divergent ($22.8 million), which puts it squarely in the middle of the young-adult range.A closer comparison is last November's Ender's Game, which opened to $9.8 million on its way to a $27 million weekend. If The Maze Runner follows Ender's pattern, it will finish the weekend with just over $30 million (a very good result).Opening at 2,712 theaters, A Walk Among the Tombstones took second place with $4.7 million.

Fox’s The Maze Runner grabbed $1.1M in late-night showings at 2,200 locations starting at 10 Pm. The best comparison is probably the sci-fi actioner Ender’s Game, which launched with $1.4 million in November 2013 and went on to have an opening weekend gross of $27M (on the other hand, it cost three times more than Maze Runner). So, perhaps Fox is more on the money with a lower estimate for this weekend.

Another comparison title is this year’s other Ya sci-fi actioner — Divergent (Summit/Lgf). It grabbed $4.9M in late nights that started at 8 Pm and went on to gross $54.6M in its first weekend out. Of course, that one was driven by the young female demo. The Maze Runner is tapping in with the young male audience better, so we will have to see how that translates tonight — which will probably be front-loaded with Ya fans. Fan reviews for the film are pretty good.

I'm posting this early so I don't have any Friday numbers, but The Maze Runner is already out-pacing Divergent overseas, already bringing in $8.5 million and some are predicting as high as $40 million for the latest young adult adaptation. Promotion on the film seems to have either been muted or I'm just not watching the right channels so it's hard for me to see it going that high and I'm more likely to agree with Laremy's $31.9 million assessment, which is $3.9 million higher than the reader aggregate, though that would seem to be on the low end of expected results. I didn't get a chance to see This is Where I Leave You, but it looked harmless enough and the word I heard is that it's exactly what you'd expect after seeing the trailer. Seems like a rental to me and Laremy is predicting a $15.1 million weekend, while the readers see it more as a $13.3 million movie.

Twentieth Century Fox's boy-centric The Maze Runner took off Friday night at the multiplex thanks to younger males and females, putting it on course for a debut of $30 million or more. It's the first Ya film adaptation to launch in September, a generally sleepy month at the North American box office. Maze Runner, earning an A- CinemaScore, grossed roughly $11 million for the day from 3,604 theaters, including Imax runs. Liam Neeson's A Walk Among the Tombstones placed a distant No. 2, earning $4.7 million on Friday for a projected $14 million weekend and coming in

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This weekend, a group of teenage boys are trapped in a maze in the big-screen adaptation of the best-selling young adult novel "The Maze Runner," a soldier shows up at the doorstep of a fallen comrade's grieving family in the psychological thriller "The Guest," the Julianna Margulies-starring "The Good Wife" kicks off Season 6 Sunday night on CBS, and the new comic-book series "Gotham" premieres Monday night on Fox.

Also in theaters this weekend: In "This Is Where I Leave You," four grown siblings are forced to return to their childhood home in the wake of their father's death. The comedy-drama stars Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Jane Fonda, Adam Driver, Rose Byrne, and more. "A Walk Among the Tombstones" stars Liam Neeson as a private investigator hired by a drug kingpin to find out who kidnapped and murdered his wife. Directed by Kevin Smith, horror movie "Tusk" stars Justin Long...

4th Update, Monday, 2:43 Pm Pt: Who was No. 1 this weekend in China? It’s just not clear. Although Warner Bros reported $7.7M this afternoon for Into The Storm, Fox reported $7.64M for Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes and it looks like Expendables 3 ended up with $7.5M (according to Rentrak). But China reporting on box office is always a bit sketchy and numbers tend to fluctuate, which may be why another final total for Into The Storm shows it pulled in only $7.16M. Warners is sticking by its $7.7M number (which includes previews). So, to be fair to both parties, it’s really too close to call.

Final grosses are in for Guardians Of The Galaxy and other films including The Maze Runner (which bows in the states next weekend), The Boxtrolls (which won’t bow until September 26 in the U.S.), Dolphin Tale 2, Lucy, Finding Fanny (which...

Chicago – In the latest HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 25 pairs of advance-screening movie passes up for grabs to the highly anticipated new mystery “A Walk Among the Tombstones” starring Liam Neeson!

“A Walk Among the Tombstones,” which opens on Sept. 19, 2014 and is rated “R,” also stars Dan Stevens, David Harbour, Maurice Compte, Laura Birn, Adam David Thompson, Kim Rosen, Eric Nelsen, Razane Jammal and Al Nazemian from writer and director Scott Frank based on the novel by Lawrence Block. Note: As this film is rated “R,” you must be 17+ to win this Hookup.

To win your free “A Walk Among the Tombstones” passes courtesy of HollywoodChicago.com, just get interactive with our social media widget below. That’s it! This screening is on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014 at 7:30 p.m. in downtown Chicago. The more social actions you complete, the more points you score and the higher yours odds of winning!

Universal Pictures handed out a slew of new release dates today, most notably giving Guillermo del Toro's haunted house thriller Crimson Peak an October 16, 2015 release. As of now, the movie has no direct competition in that slot.

Mia Wasikowska is attached to star as Edith Cushing, who realizes that her new husband isn't the man he appears to be. Charlie Hunnam, Tom Hiddleston, Jessica Chastain, Burn Gorman, Jim Beaver, Javier Botet and Emily Coutts are attached to star. Guillermo del Toro is directing from a script he co-wrote with Matthew Robbins and Lucinda Coxon, with production scheduled to begin next month at Pinewood Studios in Toronto.

The studio also issued a February 27, 2015 release date for Everest, which Baltasar Korm&#225kur is directing. it is going up against Selfless, starring Ryan Reynolds. Josh Brolin, Jake Gyllenhaal, John Hawkes and Jason Clarke are attached to star in this drama, based on...

• Russell Crowe (Man of Steel) is in talks to direct and star in The Water Diviner, a 1919-set film about an Australian man searching for his sons in Turkey following the Battle of Gallipoli — the Allied attempt, and failure, to capture the Ottoman capital. The Oscar winner’s next projects include Akiva Goldsman’s Winter’s Tale, and Darren Aronofsky’s Noah. [Deadline]

• The Salma Hayek-produced animated feature, The Prophet, has lined up a pretty outstanding voice cast that includes Liam Neeson, John Krasinski, Quvenzhané Wallis, Frank Langella, and Alfred Molina. Roger Allers (The Lion King) wrote the script based on Khalil Girbran’s 1923 book,...

Universal’s Non-Stop, starring Liam Neeson, has set its theatrical release date for February 21, 2014.

The Joel Silver-produced action thriller is set almost entirely within the cabin of a plane traveling from New York to London. As the U.S. Air Marshal on board, Neeson’s character begins to receive a series of text messages threatening to kill passengers unless the anonymous terrorist gets $150 million delivered to an off-shore account. Everyone on board is suddenly a suspect, including Neeson’s seat mate, played by Julianne Moore, and Michelle Dockery as a flight attendant.

Non-Stop is Neeson’s second project with director Jaume Collet-Serra.