Box Office: What Made 'Runner Runner' Stumble Stumble?

Box Office: What Made 'Runner Runner' Stumble Stumble? - The Moviefone Blog

This weekend, 20th Century Fox went all in on "Runner Runner," a $30 million drama about online poker starring Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck, and even though just about everyone bet high on it, the film went bust. Pundits predicted it might debut as high as $15 million, but it earned only about half of that, an estimated $7.6 million, opening in third place at the box office.  Why did the film flop? There were a number of reasons, some of them expected (strong competition from fellow grown-up drama "Gravity"), some of them not (sneak attack by Somali pirates!). Here's the rundown: