PARANORMAL ACTIVITY takes top spot at weekend box office; critic has no snark to add
Apparently, I spent this weekend under a rock, because I was shocked when I pulled up the ol’ weekend Mojo to check out this weekend’s results. I may actually have gasped. Clearly, I have not been reading my Twitterfeed closely enough. Last weekend, I called PARANORMAL ACTIVITY’s grasping of the third slot “the big story of the weekend.” This is much bigger. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY is this weekend’s number one film, pulling in $22 million. This is a film that languished in relative obscurity for two years, had a budget of $11,000, and can owe its mainstream success to buzz from happy (well, relatively happy, mainly just terrified) audiences. Is Paramount kicking themselves for not releasing it sooner? Probably not. This is an unprecedented success within a dismal period of new releases. It’s a strange, perfect convergence of factors. Well it ever happen again? Let’s wait and see.This weekend also heralded the opening of our yearly entry into the SAW legacy. SAW VI opened in second place, pulling in $14.8 million. This is the lowest opening for a SAW film, but SAW VI should benefit from generally positive buzz, especially after the letdown of SAW V.
The rest of the weekend’s opening box office is a big ol’ lesson in bust. ASTRO BOY opened in sixth place with just over $7 million. With an estimated $65 million budget, good luck earning that back. CIRQUE DU FREAK: THE VAMPIRE’S ASSISTANT took eighth place with $6.3 million. And, in what I certainly hope is an example of the general public listening to critics, the overwhelmingly lackluster AMELIA biopic opened in eleventh place, making just over $4 million.
The rest of the box office is a mishmash of whatever else is chilling in theaters: WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE dropped to third place, making $14.4 million, less than half of its opening weekend; LAW ABIDING CITIZEN is holding on to fourth place with $12.7 million; COUPLES RETREAT took fifth place and $11 million; THE STEPFATHER retread is in seventh place with $6.5 million; CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS continued to rain down in ninth place with $5.6 million; and ZOMBIELAND lived to kick another weekend’s ass in tenth place with $4.3 million.
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