1. Paranormal Activity 3- $54M
It seemed pretty clear from the start that Paranormal Activity 3 was headed towards a historic weekend, after earning nearly $9M at midnight screenings and $26M+ on Friday night alone. But did anybody expect this? Breaking the weekend record for horror openings?Not friggin' likely. The $54M proves that fans clearly haven't grown tired of the found footage genre or the franchise, surpassing PA2's $40M opening. What this means for the future is unclear, but you can probably expect to see more of Katie terrorizing some other family members or moving on to haunting random strangers in the next flick. Horrors tend to drop pretty quickly, but with Halloween descending on us in the next week, PA3 may have one more strong weekend before it crashes.
2. Real Steel- $11.3M/$67.2M
3. Footloose- $10.9M/$31M
As I predicted last week, good word of mouth has sustained Craid Brewer's hot steppin' musical into a second week. Paramount must love having the #1 and #3 movies in the top 10. Somebody's getting a raise.
4. The Three Musketeers- $8.8M
Milla Jojovich recently whined about Summit Entertainment and their haphazard marketing style, which seems to forget the American audience altogether sometimes. Not that it matters, because all of her hubby Paul W. S. Anderson's flicks kick butt overseas more than they do here. The Three Musketeers is a tough sell here under the best of circumstances, but trying to make it look like the crude offspring of The Matrix and Resident Evil isn't going to put any butts in seats. And so you get this mediocre opening.
5. The Ides of March- $4.9M/$29.1M
6. Dolphin Tale- $4.5M/$65M
7. Moneyball- $4.1M/$64M
8. Johnny English Reborn- $3.7M
Nobody cares about Rowan Atkinson here in the States, or his lousy Mr. Bean meets James Bond movies, which explain why it only opened at just over 1500 theaters. Worldwide it'll probably cross $100M in the next day or so.
9. The Thing- $3.1/$14M
As expected, The Thing got scared right out of the building by genre king, Paranormal Activity 3, plummeting roughly 60%.
10. 50/50- $2.8M/$29M
