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Friday
23Oct2009

'Paranormal Activity' Hits Number One at Box Office

DateFriday, October 23, 2009 at 3:10PM
I've tried to avoid as much hyperbole as I can when describing the way Paranormal Activity is making money. By the end of this weekend, the movie with a budget smaller than what you paid for your car will have earned roughly $60 million in five weeks. Not bad considering that, until today, it was never in more than 800 theaters.

See, we're led to believe that being in 3,500 theaters is the key to box office success. But while G.I. Joe had three good days and Where the Wild Things Are managed to earn over $30 million last weekend, movies like those have faded away pretty quickly, and the expense in marketing those potential blockbusters, as well as rental fees for the thousands of theaters, can really add up for studios and distributors.

Meanwhile, Paranormal Activity has done something almost Herculean in the era of 3,000-theater release patterns: It's put together back-to-back days at number one. There are caveats, of course, beginning with Wedneesday and Thursday results not meaning a whole lot in the final analysis.

But any way you slice it, a movie in 760 theaters shouldn't make more cash than a newer, more familiar movie with five times as many locations. We're only talking a couple million bucks on both days, but Drew Barrymore's Whip It is on twice as many screens, opened a week later, and is barely making $100,000 per screen.

Today marks the first day in wide release for Paranormal Activity; Paramount still isn't doing as much marketing for it as the other films in theaters, but given the word of mouth and a near tripling of the available venues, I think we could see the film overtake traditional October powerhouse Saw VI this weekend.

We said that in our Fearless Forecast yesterday, but I truly think the winner this weekend will be determined less by the number of people who want to see Paranormal Activity and the overall health of the Saw franchise. If it can't pack 'em in this weekend, the weekend could be a slaughter, pardon the pun.

AuthorColin Boyd | | in , , | Print ArticlePrint Article | | CommentPost a Comment |

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