'Gravity' Confines Tom Hanks to Earthly Opening

Despite a swelling swarm of Oscar buzz surrounding Tom Hanks for his latest film Captain Phillips, it wasn't enough to eclipse the space thriller Gravity, which has now claimed the box office for the past two weekends.

Gravity, starring George Clooney and Sandra Bullock, reaped an astronomical estimated $44.2 million domestic over the weekend, effortlessly soaring past the $100-million domestic mark to a $123.4-million total.

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Captain Phillips finished a distant second, collecting hardly more than half of Gravity's Week 2 stash with a $26-million domestic opening.

The animated sequel Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 finished in third, bumping its gross domestic total to $78 million with $14.2 million over the film's third weekend of release.

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The remainder of the box office took a sharp drop after Cloudy 2.

Runner Runner (4th: $3.7 million, $14.2 million) continued its measly run, Machete Kills (5th: $3.7 million) failed to draw moviegoers for its opening, and Prisoners (6th: $3.6 million, $53.6 million) continued its run-of-the-mill box-office run.

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Rounding out the bottom half of the Top 10 were horror film Insidious: Chapter 2 (7th: $2.7 million, $78.5 million), Joseph Gordon-Levitt's feature film directorial debut Don Jon ($2.3 million, $20.2 million), Formula One racing drama Rush (9th: $2.3 million, $22.2 million), and comedy Baggage Claim (10th: $2.0 million, $18.3 million).