Box office: A chilly opening for ‘Out of the Furnace’

The lone film opening in wide release on Friday, “Out of the Furnace,� failed to generate much heat going into its debut weekend.

Starring Christian Bale as a blue-collar worker in a film directed by Scott Cooper of “Crazy Heart,� the film earned $1.8 million on Friday, according to estimates. The film, which also stars Zoe Saldana, Woody Harrelson, Sam Shepard and Forest Whitaker, earned mixed reviews and was expected to take in roughly $8 million as of Sunday according to pre-release audience surveys.

A relatively quiet slate of releases is translating to another strong weekend for “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,� which continued its hold on the top of the box office charts with an estimated $7.7 million in sales on Friday. The second installment of the “Hunger Games� saga has taken in an impressive $317 million heading into its third weekend of release.

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Also still performing strong, the 3-D animated Disney musical “Frozen,� which earned an estimated $6.8 million on Friday. The film earned nearly $93.6 million of its $109 million total over the holiday weekend, making it the second-biggest Thanksgiving weekend opening ever behind “Catching Fire.�

Rounding out the top five was “Thor: The Dark World� coming in at fourth place so far this weekend with $1.2 million and the Vince Vaughn comedy “Delivery Man� at No. 5 with an estimated $1.1 million.

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Twitter: @chrisbarton