The box office results for Halloween weekend had animation scaring off Paranormal Activity 3’s brief stay at the top. Meanwhile, two Hollywood studs fail to attract audiences. Here are the studio estimates:
1. Puss in Boots ($34 million)
2. Paranormal Activity 3 ($18.5 million)
3. In Time ($12 million)
4. Footloose 2011 ($5.4 million)
5. The Rum Diary ($5 million)
6. Real Steel ($4.7 million)
7. The Three Musketeers ($3.5 million)
8. The Ides of March ($2.7 million)
9. Moneyball ($2.4 million)
10. Courageous ($1.8 million)
Analysis
Going outside of the top ten, the period piece, Anonymous, only raked in $1 million in its limited release (265 theaters). The goal was to expand this slowly over the coming weeks but guess what, no one seems to care about a William Shakespeare conspiracy theory. A few investors are about to wax poetically on how they ate $30 million (production budget).
And now to the animated winner, Puss in Boots. Despite having no direct competition in the fam-friendly genre – and boasting 3D ticket prices – DreamWorks’ spin-off of a Shrek favorite just didn’t collect the riches it was hoping for. While the flick will hang around for a couple weeks, this cat will have to use all its nine lives to recoup some of the $130 million people spent to get this sucker made. So to sum up…FLOP ALERT!
Johnny Depp is usually a box office guarantee…except for this go-around. The Rum Diary marks the actor’s lowest wide-release opening, in which he starred, since 1999’s The Astronaut’s Wife. A campy & vibrant trailer from mini-major FilmDistrict could not trump what critics were saying since they had the first pour on this guy. This drink costs $50 million to brew and the only thing anyone is getting out of this is a bewildered hangover.
Another big name also had trouble getting people to drop-in this weekend to see his latest work, In Time. The Sci-Fi thriller built and marketed around Justin Timberlake is going to ironically a decent amount of time in the top ten these next few weeks. With a $50 million production budget and a lackluster opening, it will be interesting to see if this is a reflection on Timberlake’s drawing power, or the content of the film that the majority critics failed to endorse.
Sleeper Hit: Footloose 2011. Quietly hanging around in the upper echelon of the ranks these last 3 weeks, the dance-remake is now just under $39 million on the domestic front. Having a relatively trim $24 million production budget, this will eventually see the black ink down the road.
Moneyball currently holds the longest streak in the top ten with 6 weeks. The possible Oscar contender is now up to $67 million stateside.
And with it being Halloween weekend, Paranormal Activity 3’s domestic total is now up to $81 million. With a healthy assist from international totals, this could be the franchises highest grosser when it’s all said and done, even though it did drop 65% from its opening jaunt.
This Friday brings in nothing but comedies with Tower Heist and another installment of stoner-comedy Harold & Kumar; this time, in 3D (actually makes sense for once, if you know what I mean). Reviews will be right here my fellow Shockers!
Report by Joe Belcastro
