Box Office - A Win's a Win for 'This Is It'

The Michael Jackson documentary This Is It has done pretty well internationally, but the domestic numbers are nowhere near where they were expected to be. It's puzzling to me why there was still an air of dominance about the film's performance. Take for example yesterday's headline in Variety: "This Is It Continues to Transfix Auds." Well, look, $8 million on a Friday is commonplace. That's roughly what Paranormal Activity and Zombieland, and even less than Final Destination, Couples Retreat, and Where the Wild Things Are.

So yes, it won the weekend, but the ticket sales here in the US were not good. In fact, it's about 13% what AEG said the ridiculous number could be, and not quite 60% what the official estimates were. Again, the international numbers were strong - just over $100 million - but Sony just announced it will keep the movie in theaters longer than the two weeks it promised, a sure sign it won't make enough in that period to satisfy the studio. The five-day total here in the states is only $32.5 million, about $21 million of that coming over the traditional weekend. Paranormal Activity, of course, finished in second place. It only dropped 22% to $16.5 million this weekend, taking its total up to nearly $85 million. So we know it will be a $100 million movie, and as we discussed on Friday, it's already the most profitable movie ever made, thanks to its incredibly low budget. That $100 million will almost certainly come in a week or so, meaning the total US box office for this film will wind up close to $120 million.

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Box Office - 'Wild Things' Eats Up Big Friday

Last weekend, we told you about a record-breaking performance by Couples Retreat that was so specific it barely counts as anything: Best live-action comedy opening day in October. Now there's another one along the same lines. Where the Wild Things Are pushed $11.9 million worth of tickets on Friday to secure the highest-grossing October opening day ever for live-action PG-rated movie. A coveted honor, no doubt.

While it's great that the movie did so well on Friday, let's remember that it's being released in over 3,700 theaters. That's within 10% or so of the summer blockbusters, so when we look at the final numbers this weekend - we projected low-to-mid-$30 millions and that seems about right - remember that this will have a wider opening than all but nine movies released so far this year. But if that's number one, what will finish in second place? It appears to be Law Abiding Citizen. I sent a Tweet last night alluding to the fact that we were seeing a lot more traffic here at The Big Picture for our Citizen review than even Wild Things, and I wondered if that had any meaning. It does. It means people are checking out the Jamie Foxx-Gerard Butler movie in pretty healthy numbers, so much so that it nearly grabbed as much in its entire weekend estimate on one day.

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Fearless Forecast - Big Things for 'Wild Things'

Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are tops the list of new releases this weekend, and much like Couples Retreat was a man among boys last weekend, that should be reflected here, as well, though not to the degree it was a week ago.

Warner Bros. would like Where the Wild Things Are to be a massive hit, as it would with all of its movies, but this one in particular might be on the studio's wish list. We don't know exactly how much of the film was reshot about a year ago or how much that cost, but we know it was a pretty big overhaul, and those are expensive. So, realistically, this has to make probably at least 50% more than it would have needed to if Warner Bros. didn't commission a bunch of re-shoots. Perhaps audiences will show up in droves weeks from now; that's the ideal scenario. The two new films vying for the leftover dollars are Law Abiding Citizen and The Stepfather; neither has much of a chance, and collectively they'd probably finish a distant second to Where the Wild Things Are. However, the real second place film should be Paranormal Activity. It might drop to third behind Couples Retreat, but that's the race to watch this weekend.

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Box Office - 'Couples Retreat' Cruises to Easy Win

We hinted at this kind of performance yesterday, and really, the numbers now are quite staggering. Couples Retreat, the week's only new movie to pop up in a significant amount of theaters, was far and away the top choice of moviegoers, showing no decline worth mentioning on Saturday and Sunday. It started the weekend with $12 million and change and managed to earn right around $35 million for the weekend, according to Box Office Mojo. Despite bad reviews, the Vince Vaughn comedy clearly knew its target demo, saturated the marketplace over the past couple of weeks, and is now reaping the rewards.

For Vaughn, it's another great opening weekend that proves he's still one of the best bets in Hollywood. Fred Claus has been his less successful film in the past five years, and even that movie made $100 million worldwide. However, with a $70 million budget (plus marketing costs, which were considerable here), there's still a long way to go before COuples Retreat will be seen as a blockbuster. The same can not be said of Paranormal Activity, the lowest-budget movie perhaps in history to make the top five at the box office. A $7 million weekend in 159 theaters is more than triple the previous record for a film in such few theaters. How much money has it made? Well, not counting marketing money, Transformers earned about $4 for every dollar spent, The Hangover took in about $11 for each dollar spent, and Paranormal Activity has made roughly $690 for every dollar spent. Wow.

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Box Office: 'Couples,' 'Paranormal' Make History

Although the raw numbers from Friday don't look that auspicious, both Couples Retreat and Paranormal Activity made history yesterday. The new Vince Vaughn comedy set one of those highly specific marks: It's the biggest one-day total for a live-action comedy ever in the month of October. Admittedly, the $12.3 million is a big day, and it's significantly more than I expected it to make, but it's not one of those records you're likely to remember.

On the other hand, Paranormal Activity, the super-low-budget horror movie, is the new record holder for a limited release: No movie playing in fewer than 200 theaters has ever made as much in one day ($2.7 million) and according to Variety, if it hits $5 million for the weekend, it will be the biggest weekend in history for a movie playing in so few theaters. Now that's something to crow about.

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