Box office Left Behind played on 1,825 screens on its opening weekend, taking the number six position at the US box office with $6,300,147. The film gained 62 screens the following weekend, but posted a decline of 55% to end with $2,834,919. The third weekend saw the film dip to 923 screens and posted a 67.5% drop to $922,618. Its fourth weekend was the biggest drop yet for the movie at 71%, but rebounded in the later weeks. The final two weekends of the film's US theatrical release, however, posted a robust 265% increase before ending its run on December 11, 2014. It also debuted in Singapore and Russia on the same day as its US run (October 3), with the former grossing $101,585 from 13 screens and the latter grossing $620,636 from 470 screens. The following week, the film opened in three additional countries: Lebanon ($63,585 opening week) on October 8, and Malaysia ($303,833 opening week) and Philippines ($259,303 opening week) on October 9, all having the highest debuts in the top three, with the countries of Lebanon and Philippines had the film ranked second place on their Box Office Chart. The film opened in two more countries the following week. The film ranked eighth place in Taiwan and came in second place in the
United Arab Emirates with $336,544 from 47 screens. Egypt and Brazil soon followed on October 22 and 23, taking in $24,951 and $633,096, respectively. Brazil was the first country to actually post a second-week increase (but only a scant +0.2% increase) and retained its fifth-place spot, making $634,150 (from 232 screens) for a total of $1,591,847. The film dropped 41% in its third week to end the weekend with $373,034 and a total of $2,221,533. The movie debuted in South Africa on December 4, 2014, ranking 11th place with a total of $14,424. The movie opened in Ecuador on April 17, 2015, debuting in 7th place with $15,055 from 11 screens. The movie dropped 6% the second week, earning $14,156 from 12 screens. However, its third week suffered a massive -88% decline, ending the weekend with $1,673 from 6 screens. The film has grossed $45,652. The film was released in Italy on July 29, 2015, and took the no. 3 position with $309,832. In its second weekend, the film dropped two spots to number five with $164,047 (a decline of 47%). The third week saw a decline of only 18% but retained its fifth place spot to end the weekend with 134,186. The film fell out of the top 10 beginning in its fourth week, as it ended the week $23,627 (resulting in a steep 82% drop). The film dropped to number 14 in its fifth week with $15,326. The sixth week saw a drop to the 16th position, but saw a steady 32% increase to end the week with $21,026. The seventh and final week saw only a scant 3% fall to end the week with $20,414. Its seven-week cumulative total stands at $1,048,328. As of March 4, 2016, the film closed and had grossed $14,019,924 in North America and $13,385,972 in other territories for a worldwide total of $27,405,896, against a production budget of $16 million. On
Metacritic, the film has a score of 12 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "overwhelming dislike". Audiences polled by
CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale. In a review for
Entertainment Weekly, film critic Lindsey Bahr gave the film a grade of F, writing, "At best,
Left Behind is shoddily made sensationalist propaganda—with atrocious acting—that barely registers as entertainment. At worst, it's profoundly moronic. Audiences, Christian or not, deserve better, and it's hard to imagine that the ham-fisted revelations in this schlock could serve any higher purpose."
Richard Roeper gave the film a grade of D−, stating that "the writing is horrible, the direction is clunky, the special effects are not special [and] the acting is so wooden you could make a basketball court out of it. Everything about this film feels forced and overwrought. With all due respect: Oh. My. God." On her ½ star review of the film, Linda Barnard from the
Toronto Star writes, "The tantalizing prospect that this could have been a camp set-up of the
Snakes on a Plane or
Sharknado ilk pops up as
Left Behind starts to echo 1970s flight deck-driven disaster films—and the parodies that followed. No such luck. Armstrong appears humourlessly earnest about his task. Score one for Satan." Christian film critics were critical of
Left Behind. Paul Chambers from MovieChambers.com begins his scathing review with, "There are millions of Christians with average or above-average intelligence. I'd like to think that I'm one of them. So, what possessed the makers of
Left Behind to produce such an ignorant piece of garbage that's easily one of the worst films of 2014, if not all-time?" Evangelical Christian magazine
Christianity Today criticized the film, saying, "
Left Behind is not a Christian movie, whatever 'Christian Movie' could even possibly mean. In fact, most Christians within the world of the movie—whether the street-preacher lady at the airport or Rayford Steele's wife—are portrayed as insistent, crazy, delusional, or at the very least just really annoying. They want churches to book whole theaters and take their congregations, want it to be a Youth Group event, want magazines like this one to publish Discussion Questions at the end of their reviews—want the system to churn away, all the while netting them cash, without ever having to have cared a shred about actual Christian belief. They want to trick you into caring about the movie. Don't." They also stated that they "tried to give the film zero stars, but our tech system won't allow it." The film was praised by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, the original authors of the
Left Behind series. Neither liked the 2000 version, and LaHaye filed suit against it for breach of contract. After watching an early screening of the film, LaHaye said, "It is the best movie I have ever seen on the
rapture", while Jenkins said, "I believe it does justice to the novel and will renew interest in the entire series." When asked if it was good, Jenkins said, "It's better than good."
Awards Left Behind was nominated for three
Razzies at the
35th Golden Raspberry Awards, for
Worst Picture,
Worst Screenplay, and
Worst Actor for Nicolas Cage. It lost in all three categories to
Saving Christmas, starring
Kirk Cameron, who coincidentally starred in the original
Left Behind film franchise. == Sequel and spin-off ==