NORTH AMERICA: 'The Perfect Guy' Maintains Slim Lead on Thursday with $1.05M; 'The Visit' Remains a Close Second with $1.00M; 'War Room' Holds Up Well with $0.77M

By Daniel Garris

Sony's The Perfect Guy grossed $1.05 million on Thursday to lead the daily box office for a fourth consecutive day. The low-budget thriller from Screen Gems starring Sanaa Lathan, Michael Ealy and Morris Chestnut was down 10 percent from Wednesday. It should be noted that daily percentage declines were sharp in general on Thursday, due in part to Fox's Maze Runner: The Scorch Trails, Warner's Black Mass and Universal's Everest all entering the marketplace on Thursday evening. The Perfect Guy was the week's top film with a stronger than expected seven-day start of $31.71 million. That places the film a healthy 6 percent ahead of the $29.91 million seven-day start of last year's No Good Deed.

Universal's The Visit continued to hold steady in a very close second place with $0.998 million. The low-budget M. Night Shyamalan directed horror thriller from Blumhouse Productions trailed The Perfect Guy by just $56,338 for the day and by $712,152 for the week. The Visit exceeded expectations this week with a second place seven-day start of $30.998 million. The film is currently running 24 percent ahead of the $25.06 million seven-day take of 2006's Lady in the Water.

Sony's War Room continued to display terrific holding power on Thursday with a third place take of $0.769 million. The break-out Kendrick Brothers produced faith based film from TriStar and AFFIRM Films was up 8 percent over Wednesday and down only 22 percent from last Thursday. War Room placed in third for the week with $11.05 million. That represented a very solid 33 percent decline from the previous week and brings the film's three-week total to an impressive $42.84 million.

Based on studio reported weekly grosses, BoxOffice estimates that Broad Green Pictures' A Walk in the Woods placed in fourth on Thursday with $0.399 million. The Robert Redford led comedy claimed fourth place for the week with $6.80 million. A Walk in the Woods was down 48.5 percent from the previous week and has grossed a stronger than expected $22.06 million in 16 days of release.