Weekend Box Office: ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy’ Still Number One, ‘The Identical’ Fails, ‘Forest Gump’ IMAX Release Off To A Bad Start

In what critics are calling the slowest weekend after Labor Day in a decade, it seems film fans will have nothing to head to the movies for, unless it's "Guardians of the Galaxy" for the third time. The Disney-Marvel off-beat superhero film remained number one this weekend, while the new religious film "The Identical" is off to a horrendous start. Moreover, it looks like even the classic "Forest Gump" can't get audiences to the theaters this weekend.

Box Office Mojo reports: "With faith-based flick ‘The Identical' bombing, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy' easily held on to first place at the box office on a very slow Friday. The Top 10 earned just $13.2 million yesterday. On the worst weekend of the past decade (Sept. 5-7), the Top 10 took in $14 million. Translation: this will likely be the lowest-grossing weekend in over a decade."

"Guardians of the Galaxy" continues to impress as it is has recently surpassed "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" to become the highest grossing film this year. According to Variety the film "will likely become by next weekend the first film of 2014 to hit $300 million."

"The Identical" on the other hand had an unimpressive start with an estimated gross of $534,000 on Friday. As Variety reports, "the Christian Elvis musical drama from Freestyle Releasing, the studio behind the surprise hit "God's Not Dead" ($60.7 million), looks to open to $2 million this weekend." Looks like film will fail to tap into the audience that surfaced for "God's Not Dead."

As far as old film releases are concerned, Deadline explains: "Paramount's IMAX re-release of ‘Forrest Gump' is generating $110K on 337 for $379K three-day, but if auds are gonna spend big bucks on old films, they're choosing ‘Ghostbusters' which made $157K yesterday for an estimated weekend take just under $600K."

All in all, this slow weekend is more of the same. But with Oscar season fast approaching as film festivals begin their closing ceremonies, fans can look forward to some interesting titles in the upcoming months.