Geekscape’s Box Office Roundup For the Weekend of 10/21/11

This weekend, Paranormal Activity 3 frightened off the competition with a monster of an opening and scared its way into the record books in spooktacular fashion.

The Top

Paranormal Activity 3, the sequel to Paranormal Activity and Paranormal Activity 2, opened with an enormous $54 million and became the biggest opening ever for a Fall release, as well as the biggest opening ever for a horror film. It also became the biggest opening for a Paranormal Activity movie.

In 2009, the first Paranormal Activity earned $19.6 million with its wide release. Last year, Paranormal Activity 2 doubled that with $40.6 million. In 2012, Paranormal Activity 4 should open with $70 million. You read it hear first. Combined, the three movies have earned $114 million on their opening weekends alone. When comparing that to the $8 million it’s taken to make all three, it’s pretty safe to assume we’ll be seeing quite a few more of these.

To compare it to other third installments of horror franchises, A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors opened with $8.8 million in 1987. Even after inflation, it doesn’t come close to $54 million, despite being the best in its franchise. Coming close to the $54 million, but still not quite there is the $9.4 million that Friday the 13th Part III opened to in 1982. Let’s all just pretend that Halloween 3 doesn’t exist and move past that one.

Comparing it to more recent franchises, it also bested Saw III’s $33.6 million and Final Destination 3’s $19 million, both in 2006. It also came in slightly ahead of Scream 3’s $34.7 million in 2000.

Looking at it compared to 3’s that came out last year, Paranormal Activity’s $54 million barely beat out Jackass 3-D’s $50 million, but completely obliterated Step Up 3-D’s $15.8 million, which is fitting because Step Up 3-D sucked. It was only half of the $110 million Toy Story 3 saw, so it isn’t the king of 3’s, but did prove that you can have a third installment in a franchise and still resist the urge to make it 3-D.

The Rest

After two weeks at the top, Real Steel, the movie about robot boxing, finally fell down to the second spot while earning another $11.3 million to put its three week total at $67.2 million. It’s holding better in its third weekend than Hugh Jackman’s Van Helsing did in 2004. Van Helsing saw a 49% drop in it’s third weekend for $10 million, while Real Steel only fell 30%. It’s still a couple weeks away from breaking even on its budget, but it will get there.

The Footloose remake illegally danced its way to the number three spot. It only saw a 30% drop and added another $10.8 million to its total to push it to $30.8 million after 10 days compared to its $24 million budget. It may be completely unnecessary and ridiculous, but it’s at least profitable. Despite not opening as strong as recent dance movies, it held stronger than all three Step Ups, Save The Last Dance and Stomp The Yard. Everybody cut loose.

Opening in fourth was another new release, The Three Musketeers, with a weak $8.8 million. Despite having two more, it was behind the opening of The Musketeer with $10.3 million in 2001. After being adjusted for inflation, it also opened weaker than The Three Amigos did with $5.9 million in 1986.

We’re surrounded… by more competent movies.

The Three Musketeers marks the return to movies where he can play with a sword for Orlando Bloom, but didn’t even see half the success of his previous weakest release where he gets to play with a sword, Kingdom Of Heaven in 2005 with $19.6 million. It obviously doesn’t come close to his franchises where he got to play with a sword, The Lord Of The Rings and Pirates Of The Caribbean, and brought in only about a fourth of what he earned with Troy in 2004 ($46.8 million).

The Ides Of March is holding strong, as it came in fifth and added another $4.8 million.

Dolphin Tale and Moneyball continue to remain almost identical as they hang in there at sixth and seventh. They sit at $64.3 and $63.7 million, respectively.

The other major wide release, Johnny English Reborn, opened all the way in eighth place with $3.8 million. That’s much weaker than its predecessor, Johnny English, which opened with $9.1 million in 2003. It’s also off the pace of star Rowan Atkinson’s Mr. Bean’s Holiday’s $9.8 million in 2007. On the surface, this looks like a bomb, but in reality, the American market was pretty much an afterthought as it’s already earned over $100 million worldwide and is still going strong.

“I could care less about the U.S. box office.

This movie’s already earned enough to buy this entire mountain of cocaine!”

The Worst 

It hasn’t been a good Halloween season for The Thing. In just its second weekend, the remake/prequel plummeted 63% and fell all the way to ninth place. Out of the rest of the top 10, no other film dropped more than 34%. It only managed to add another $3.1 million and has only earned $14.1 million after 10 days. For a horror movie released two weeks before Halloween, those are horrible numbers.

While it’s definitely a failure, The Thing is at least faring better than last year’s failure of a horror remake released in October, Let Me In. Let Me In was out of the top 10 by its second week and only ended its theatrical run with $12 million compared to a $20 million budget. The Thing is slightly ahead with it’s $14.1 million, but it isn’t going to make its $35 million dollar budget back.

In other, “at least it isn’t” good news for The Thing, at least it isn’t The Big Year. Last week’s major bomb ended its theatrical run after only one week and $4 million worth of earnings, despite its $40 million budget. The Owen Wilson/Jack Black/Steve Martin birdwatching comedy goes down as one of the year’s biggest failures.

Next

Three wide releases will attempt to scare Paranormal Activity 3 out of the top spot next week. Let’s be honest, Puss In Boots probably will. But how will the others fare? Will America’s next great action star, Justin Timberlake, find success with In Time? Can Johnny Depp strike gold with another Hunter S. Thompson adaptation? Why is Anonymous only opening in 200 theaters despite a fairly decent sized advertising push? More people need to know if Shakespeare was a fraud!