OK, so you already know how I feel about Paranormal Activity; now apparently everyone else is feeling it, too. The little “scare-fest that could” shot to the top of the heap over the weekend with $21.1 million, soundly beating the veteran Saw franchise.
Here is the top five at the box office this weekend:
1. Paranormal Activity (Paramount) – $21.1 mil; 1,945 theaters; $10,850 PT; $61.5 mil cume
2. NEW! Saw VI (Lionsgate) – $14.1 mil; 3,036 theaters; $4,650 PT
3. Where the Wild Things Are (Warner Bros.) – $14 mil; 3,735 theaters; $3,754 PT; $53.5 mil cume
4. Law Abiding Citizen (Overture) – $12.4 mil; 2,890 theaters; $4,292 PT; $40 mil cume
5. Couples Retreat (Universal) – $10.6 mil; 3,074 theaters; $3,455 PT; $77.7 mil cume
I’m sure the Lionsgate folks never saw (get it?) it coming when they were mapping out their Halloween strategy with Saw VI – a strategy that has worked, I might add, for the last few Halloweens. But, through some excellent word-of-mouth viral campaigns, Paranormal Activity has become THE scary movie to see this Halloween, not the sixth installment of torture horror. I wonder if this will dampen the hopes of a seventh? Of course, with such a weekend, other more kid friendly newcomers such as Astro Boy and The Vampire’s Assistant, didn’t stand a chance. They came in sixth and seventh place, respectively.
It’s a no-brainer what will win this coming weekend – Michael Jackson’s This Is It. Oddly, this is Halloween weekend, so you think Saw VI and the like would have been released this Friday. But there must have been some juggling when it was apparent they could release Jackson’s last concert as a film, is my guess. In any event, This Is It is gonna be HUGE. Here’s the trailer: