DGA Nominations

• Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity
• Paul Greengrass, Captain Phillips
• Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave
• David O. Russell, American Hustle
• Martin Scorsese, The Wolf of Wall Street

And there you go.  Cuarón, Greengrass and McQueen are all celebrating their first DGA nominations.  Russell was previously nominated for The Fighter and Scorsese celebrates his his eleventh DGA honor-- he previously won for The Departed and HBO's Boardwalk Empire as well as being the recipient of the DGA Lifetime Achievement Award.

Missing in action are Alexander Payne, Joel & Ethan Coen and Spike Jonze.  However, based on last year's wackiness which saw only two DGA nominees translate into Oscar nominations in the Best Director category, who of the group may be Affleck-ed or Bigelow-ed out this year?

Auteur Power at the Box Office

Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity caused many a critic to foam at the mouth upon its premiere as the opening night presentation at the Venice Film Festival, further amping up the fuss at Telluride and Toronto.  There was much pressure all considering for distributor Warner Bros. to translate this risky (and expensive) auteurial experiment into a commercial success...for the good of not just industry dollars, but all cinematic kind.  My review will be up shortly, but lots went to theater this past weekend, prompting a new opening weekend record for the month of October.

1. Gravity- $55.0 million (first weekend)
2. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs- $21.5 million / $60.5 million total
3. Runner Runner- $7.6 million (first weekend)
4. Prisoners- $5.7 million / $47.8 million total
5. Rush- $4.4 million / $18.0 million total
6. Don Jon- $4.1 million / $16.0 million total
7. Baggage Claim- $4.1 million / $15.1 million total
8. Insidious Chapter 2- $3.8 million / $74.7 million total
9. Pulling Strings- $2.5 million (first weekend)
10. Enough Said- $2.1 million / $5.3 million total

FURTHER DOWN
Blue Jasmine- $0.4 / $31.3 million total
Parkland- $0.3 (first weekend)
Wadjda- $0.1 / $0.3
A.C.O.D.- $20K (first weekend)
Concussion- $8K (first weekend)