Paranormal Activity Cuts Saw VI Down, Wins Weekend
Posted by John Cairns (jcairns@filmschoolrejects.com) on October 25, 2009
Well, so much for all my hype about how this was going to be a duel to the death between Paranormal Activity and Saw VI. I guess the big shock is how easily Paranormal Activity won the weekend. It hauled in $22 million, compared to only $14.8 million for Saw VI, which was itself only barely ahead of Where the Wild Things Are at $14.4 million.
Not only that — the theaters remained packed solid for this flick, now up to $62 million and showing no signs of slowing down. This is a movie that was only in 1,945 locations, way less than Saw VI and, in fact, every other movie in the Top 10 — and it managed to not only beat the competition, but kill the competition. Quite an impressive performance. In fact it won every day for the entire weekend, beating Saw VI by $7.5 million to $7 million on Friday alone.
This is sure to come as good news to the many people (so I’m told) who hate the Saw franchise — a series which usually opens to first place at the weelend box office. Usually the Saw movies open in the $30-million plus range, but this one suffered the worst open in franchise history! Still, there are even more sequels planned ahead, a fact which I am sure will inspire the Saw detractors to slit their own wrists. Guys, cheer up — they lost. Maybe this jolt of reality is what is needed to turn the franchise around and make the next Saw movie a good one.
Firmly in “flop” territory is Astro Boy with a humbling $7 million haul. Doing even worse was Amelia, the poorly-received Amelia Earhart biopic starring Hilary Swank. Its haul is estimated at $4,025,000 for an average of $4,921. You would have thought it would have done a little better than that, at least a Top Ten.
Here’s a look at how the box office shaped up:
- Paranormal Activity – $22,000,000
- Saw VI – $14,800,000
- Where the Wild Things Are – $14,420,000
- Law Abiding Citizen – $12,713,000
- Couples Retreat – $11,097,000
- Astro Boy – $7,017,000
- The Stepfather (2009) – $6,500,000
- Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant – $6,348,000
- Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs – $5,600,000
- Zombieland – $4,300,000
I hope Paranormal Activity enjoys its well-deserved moment of glory this weekend at the box office. It is sure not to last long, because Michael Jackson’s This Is It will be rolling out later this week and the theaters are sure to be jammed for that one, too. That will be what we will be serving up next, right here at the Reject Report.
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