'Paranormal 3' scares up record $54 million debut

‘Para­nor­mal 3′ scares up record $54 mil­lion debut

LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Para­nor­mal Activ­ity 3″ didn’t just go bump in the night. It made a ton of noise at the box office with a record-setting, $54 mil­lion opening.

The third film in Para­mount Pic­tures’ low-budget fright fran­chise, which was No. 1 at the box office, had the biggest debut ever for a hor­ror movie, accord­ing to Sun­day stu­dio esti­mates. It broke the pre­vi­ous record part two set a year ago with $40.7 mil­lion. It’s also the biggest open­ing ever for an Octo­ber release, top­ping the $50.35 mil­lion Paramount’s “Jack­ass 3D” made last year.

“Para­nor­mal Activ­ity 3″ is actu­ally a pre­quel, with the dis­cov­ery of dis­turb­ing home-movie footage from 1988. Henry Joost and Ariel Schul­man, who made the creepy doc­u­men­tary “Cat­fish,” took over direct­ing duties this time.

Don Har­ris, Paramount’s pres­i­dent of dis­tri­b­u­tion, said the stu­dio hoped part three would sim­ply per­form bet­ter than part two. The first “Para­nor­mal Activ­ity,” with its reported $15,000 bud­get, became a phe­nom­e­non in 2009 through mid­night screen­ings and word of mouth.

Har­ris believes this install­ment did so well because it’s actu­ally the best movie of the three. He noted that it appealed to an older crowd, with 47 per­cent over the age of 25 com­pared to 40 per­cent for “Para­nor­mal Activ­ity 2.” Strong reviews also helped, he said, includ­ing a rave from Time mag­a­zine. And fun­da­men­tally, hor­ror movies sim­ply play bet­ter in a packed theater.

“Ulti­mately, it gets back to why there’s still a the­atri­cal busi­ness, why peo­ple still go to the movies,” Har­ris said. “We want to laugh in a group, we want to be scared in a group, peo­ple like to cry in a group in the dark where nobody can see them cry­ing. It’s all the rea­son movie the­aters exist and this genre has always been front and center.”

Paul Der­garabe­dian, box-office ana­lyst for Hollywood.com, said he was expect­ing “Para­nor­mal Activ­ity 3″ to come in around $35 mil­lion for the week­end, sim­ply because most new­com­ers have been under­per­form­ing this fall.

“This brand is as solid as the ‘Twi­light’ brand or the ‘Jack­ass’ brand. There are cer­tain brands that just tran­scend any kind of box-office rhyme or rea­son. They just res­onate,” Der­garabe­dian said. “These are shot in someone’s house, they look like they’re shot with a home video recorder, and peo­ple just relate to it.”

Last week’s No. 1 release, the futur­is­tic box­ing robot adven­ture “Real Steel,” fell to sec­ond place. It made $11.3 mil­lion for a domes­tic total of $67.2 mil­lion. World­wide, the Dis­ney movie has grossed $153.3 million.

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Among the other new releases this week, Sum­mit Entertainment’s 3-D ver­sion of “The Three Mus­ke­teers” came in fourth place with $8.8 mil­lion. And Universal’s “Johnny Eng­lish Reborn,” a sequel to the 2003 spy par­ody star­ring Rowan Atkin­son, opened at No. 8 with $3.8 mil­lion. But it’s already a huge hit inter­na­tion­ally, hav­ing made $104.5 mil­lion so far.

In lim­ited release, the crit­i­cally acclaimed psy­cho­log­i­cal thriller “Martha Marcy May Mar­lene” made $137,541 on four screens in New York and Los Ange­les. That’s a hefty $34,385 per screen aver­age, accord­ing to Fox Searchlight.

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Esti­mated ticket sales for Fri­day through Sun­day at U.S. and Cana­dian the­aters, accord­ing to Hollywood.com. Where avail­able, lat­est inter­na­tional num­bers are also included. Final domes­tic fig­ures will be released Monday.

1. “Para­nor­mal Activ­ity 3,” $54 mil­lion. ($26 mil­lion international.)

2. “Real Steel,” $11.3 mil­lion. ($18.5 mil­lion international.)

3. “Foot­loose,” $10.85 million.

4. “The Three Mus­ke­teers,” $8.8 mil­lion. ($17.1 mil­lion international.)

5. “The Ides of March,” $4.9 million.

6. “Dol­phin Tale,” $4.2 million.

7. “Mon­ey­ball,” $4.05 million.

8. “Johnny Eng­lish Reborn,” $3.8 mil­lion. ($13.5 mil­lion international.)

9. “The Thing,” $3.1 million.

10. “50/50,” $2.8 million.

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Esti­mated week­end ticket sales at inter­na­tional the­aters (exclud­ing the U.S. and Canada) for films dis­trib­uted over­seas by Hol­ly­wood stu­dios, accord­ing to Rentrak:

1. “Para­nor­mal Activ­ity 3,” $26 million.

2. “Real Steel,” $18.5 million.

3. “Johnny Eng­lish Reborn,” $13.5 million.

4. “The Three Mus­ke­teers,” $17.1 million.

5. “Con­ta­gion,” $9.6 million.

6. “The Smurfs,” $3.4 million.

7. “The Lion King,” $3.3 million.

8. “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” $2.9 million.

9. “Friends With Ben­e­fits,” $2.8 million.

10 “The Change-Up,” $2.4 million.

Posted by AP News on Oct 23 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.