So Tom Hanks still has an audience. Clint Eastwood’s name in the director’s credit has renewed punch, thanks to “American Sniper.”

And “Sully” is the first break-out hit of the fall, opening to an estimated $30 million this weekend. 

That’s not top dollar for either of them, but for both, it’s a sign that their audience hasn’t aged entirely out of going to the movies. Good reviews and a familiar story helped “Sully” pay off, too. Warner Brothers hopes to get a few more movies out of Eastwood before he, like Altman and Lean, Huston and perhaps Woody Allen, has to show up with an oxygen tank on set.

Screen Gems has a niche with African American cast thrillers, and “When the Bough Breaks” is delivering to the tune of $14 million or $15, depending on Saturday. Friday night was big. Better marketing, preview screenings and reviews, would have helped.

“The Wild Life” animated flop needs a huge Saturday to reach “disappointing.” It won’t even crack $5 million. They needed to cast bigger English language speaking voices, hire an English speaking joke writer or three (it was a French film) and give it the familiar title, “Robinson Crusoe” or “Crusoe and Friends.” Whole lot of blunders evident on a flop this big. Good reviews aren’t a guarantee of a hit (See “Kubo and the Two Strings”). They would have helped this one, and they were terrible. 

Nothing else new, not the horror pic “The Disappointments Room,” nada, cracked the top ten.