'Gravity' Keeps Flight at the Box Office With $44 Million

The positive reviews continue to pile on as the cash flow keeps soaring.

Gravity remained the No. 1 movie in America for the second week in row. It grossed $44.3 million in its second weekend of release, just a 21 percent drop from its record-setting debut. The Warner Bros. TWC film took in an October record of $55.7 million a week ago.

It continues to be a good year for the film's co-star, Sandra Bullock, who has had a big bounce back in 2013. Her comedy The Heat, which co-starred the rising Melissa McCarthy, grossed nearly $160 million for Fox FOX, Bullock's biggest hit since 2009's The Blind Side.

The Oscar-winner teamed up with Tom Hanks in 2011 for , an emotional roller-coaster that bombed in theaters. The two-time Oscar-winner's Captain Phillips debuted this weekend, with a solid take of just under $27 million. Another film receiving very positive reviews, it is the biggest opening for Hanks since Angels and Demons, also in 2009.

Bullock's teaming with George Clooney made for an appealing match-up on paper and has certainly paid off. With a budget of $100 million, some are calling itthe greatest space movie ever made.

According to Box Office Mojo, Gravity is helped not just by its glowing reviews, but by the 3D experience of seeing a film of such scope. Running at just 90 minutes in length, the film also benefits from more screen times, i.e. unlike last year's Zero Dark Thirty($108 million worldwide gross) which ran over two and a half hours.