The weekend paid off for all things Paranormal.
For the second year in a row, Paramount’s highly popular Paranormal Activity franchise ruled the box office during its opening weekend. Paranormal Activity 2 opened to $41.5 Million this weekend, marking yet another hugely success for the series. The first Paranormal Activity cost only $15,000 to make and went on to gross $193 Million worldwide. The sequel only cost $3 Million and although it hasn’t meet those expectations just yet, the movie is certainly poised to.
The movie opened to $20 Million on Friday alone (counting midnights) and bottomed out over the remaining two days. Last weekend, Jackass 3D opened to $20 Million on Friday as well, but went on to gross $50 Million. PA2 wasn’t released in 3D or in Imax, so its box office results aren’t inflated by higher ticket pricing associated with these types of releases.
Still, the decline from Friday to Saturday is alarming, significantly so because last year, the first movie climbed up the charts, opening slightly limited but in 4th place, and climbed each weekend until it reached the #1 spot. Paramount is absolutely proud of the franchise performance this weekend, and it will be interesting to see what happens next weekend with the release of the final Saw movie, which could take quite a bit of business from PA2 (or vice versa).
Jackass 3D, last week’s #1 champ, took a drastic hit this week, plummeting down 57% but still landing in 2nd place with $21 Million.
The fall isn’t too surprising giving the franchise’s history, and the movie has already brought in $87 Million towards its $20 Million budget (though we hear most of that went to the camera technology). Next weekend the movie should take another 60% fall, but it is still quite the success for MTV.
Hereafter, the weekend’s only other wide release, opened in a distant 4th place with $12 Million. Clint Eastwood directed movies typically aren’t huge releases, although his last effort, Gran Torino, opened with $29 Million back in 2008. It had made rounds in limited release building to its wide release though, and had quite a bit of positive buzz behind it. Hereafter was mostly dismissed by critics, with most audience members either loving it or hating it. Has Eastwood directed his first dud?
The Social Network and Secretariat continued to impress, losing roughly 25-30% of their audience over the weekend. Both movies have now eclipsed their budgets and are certainly considered a success for their respective studios. The same can’t be said for Legend of the Guardians, which fell to 8th place this week with only $3 Million in box office returns. The movie had a budget of $80 Million and is currently at $50 Million in returns. It will most likely fall out of the top ten next week, and will leave theaters
quite shy of its budget.
Weekend Box Office – Top 10
Paranormal Activity 2 – $41.5 Million
Jackass 3D – $21.6 Mililon
Red – $15 Million
Hereafter – $12 Million
The Social Network – $7.3 Million
Secretariat – $6.19 Million
Life As We Know It – $6.15 Million
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole – $3.17 Million
The Town – $2.7 Million
Easy A – $1.75 Million
Matt Wehner is a GotchaMovies.com writer. Check out his profile for more.