Weekend Box Office: October 19-21, 2012

Theatrical Activity!

Another Halloween season, another low-budget “found footage” horror flick — the popular cheapie chiller franchise continues its annual success as PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 opens at #1 with $30.2 million.

Despite topping the chart, it seems like audiences may be tiring of the series — after all, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 opened to $52.5 million on this weekend last year, and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 started out with $40.6 million the year before. Then again, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 (made for around $5M) also opened internationally this weekend and made nearly as much as the North American haul, so expect to see this tradition continue. Unless someone figures out how to bring SAW back…

Ben Affleck’s ARGO was in #2 with $16.6 million, a strong showing that’s only around 15% lower than its opening weekend. With the positive audience word-of-mouth and early awards talk, Affleck’s fact-based thriller (which cost less than $50M) should be around for some time.

In fact, percentage-wise it was a good weekend for all the players — not one movie in the Top 10 dropped more than 50% of business from last week. HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA benefited from the Halloween spirit, fighting off TAKEN 2 by a narrow margin. The computer-generated monster lodge landed in third with $13.5 million, while Liam Neeson’s latest bloodbath crossed the $100 million mark in its third week (and is nearing a $300 million global total).

Things weren’t so great for Tyler Perry, however. ALEX CROSS was the rare movie where Perry didn’t produce, write, direct or wear a fatsuit and women’s clothing, and crowds didn’t really seem to care. The latest adaptation of crime novelist James Patterson’s recurring lead character (previously played by Morgan Freeman in KISS THE GIRLS and ALONG CAME A SPIDER, and almost played by Idris Elba this time around) came in fifth with an $11.7 million opening, and the deadly reviews (13% on Rotten Tomatoes) or direction by Rob Cohen (STEALTH, xXx, THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR) probably didn’t help.  

Last week’s new supernatural spooker SINISTER had to make way for other activity of the paranormal variety, but still scored another $9 million (and a $31.9M total on a $3M budget). After that, HERE COMES THE BOOM and PITCH PERFECT are still swinging and singing, while FRANKENWEENIE and LOOPER clutch the bottom of the list. Outside the chart, SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS and THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER only got to enjoy a single weekend in the Top 10, while the new Oscar-buzzed drama THE SESSIONS opened to a solid per-screen average in limited release.

Next weekend brings the era-spanning epic CLOUD ATLAS from the Wachowski Siblings and Tom Tykwer, the Halloween kid-comedy FUN SIZE, a return to the misty town of terror in SILENT HILL: REVELATION 3D, and the surfer story CHASING MAVERICKS.

Do you plan to check out CLOUD ATLAS? VOTE HERE!