It has become a familiar refrain as of late: another blockbuster tops the box office but fails to meet expectations. Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings easily dispensed with reigning champion The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 in its opening weekend, but earned just $24 million — significantly less than what Noah made back in March, and also less than what Son of God made, believe it or not. Exodus has made $74 million worldwide thus far, but still has a ways to go before it can recoup its $140 million budget. Perhaps audiences only wanted to sit through one two and a half hour movie this month and they decided to save themselves for The Hobbit instead. Meanwhile Mockingjay dropped to second and Penguins of Madagascar fell to third. Chris Rock’s Top Five opened in fourth place, earning $7.2 million on less than 1000 screens while Wild also managed to sneak into the top 10 after an expansion. Overall box office was much lower than usual for this time of year, but the final installment of The Hobbit should change that next weekend.

1. Exodus: Gods and Kings — $24.5M
2. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 — $13.2M
3. Penguins of Madagascar — $7.3M
4. Top Five — $7.21M
5. Big Hero 6 — $6.15M
6. Interstellar — $5.5M
7. Horrible Bosses 2 — $4.63M
8. Dumb and Dumber To — $2.76M
9. The Theory of Everything — $2.53M
10. Wild — $1.55M