Well, it was an interesting weekend at the theaters, though perhaps not as earth-shattering as some had hoped. As expected, Where the Wild Things Are was the weekend’s big winner, with an opening haul of $32 million. Frankly, though, I had expected a much bigger opening. I thought there was no way this movie was going to do a worse opening than Couples Retreat last week, but it did: $32 million compared to $35 mil. Shows you what I know.
There were people in the press jumping the gun and declaring that Where the Wild Things Are was on track for an October opening record after it opened to $12 million, but the Saturday haul wasn’t much better than the Friday haul, so that’s why it ended up where it ended up. Frankly, I’m surprised it didn’t set the October record, because there was a lot of good buzz out there for this movie. Probably, though, what will happen is it will have less of a drop at the box office next week and end up making money for several weekends in a row.
(But I could be wrong on that. I’m wrong on a lot of things.)
[b]The big surprise was how well Law Abiding Citizen did: $21 million, just ahead of Paranormal Activity. That showing represents a big box office win for Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler, and yet another total defeat for the nation’s film critcs who crucified the movie, only to see it make a lot miore money than most everyone expected.[/b]
Paranormal Activity continues to roll now that it has gone into wide release in over 700 locations. It’s $20 million haul is its best weekend yet, and its screen average for the weekend is $26,530 — still a phenomenal showing. What I want to know is how many more locations will be added to the distribution next week. This flick shows no signs of slowing down at the box office and its overall gross is now up to $33 million. Not bad at all for a $15,000 investment.
Finally, The Stepfather made $12 million this weekend, which is also higher than what people predicted. All in all, I’d say it was a pretty good October weekend at the box office.
The results:
Where the Wild Things Are – $32,470,000
Law Abiding Citizen – $21,250,000
Paranormal Activity – $20,163,000
Couples Retreat – $17,949,000
The Stepfather (2009) – $12,300,000
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs – $8,100,000
Zombieland – $7,800,000
Toy Story / Toy Story 2 (3D) – $3,011,000
Surrogates – $1,922,000
The Invention of Lying – $1,905,000
That is all for now! See you later this week as we preview the weekend box office again at the Reject Report!