The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume All films in wide release playing between October 15 and October 21 grossed a decent $158 million, up 4% from the four-year average for the week and up 13% from the same week last year.    The past six weeks are now 4% above the four-year average box […]

  Holdovers saved the boxoffice this weekend. OPENINGS:  Although the studio flew to announce that a 5th installment will be opening a year from now, the weak start for PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 (Paramount) is a signpost to the (probably temporary) end of the franchise.  PA4, which desperately claimed an opening of $30.2M but will probably […]

Paranormal Activity 4 opened this weekend with $27 million overseas from 33 markets, on its way to an estimated $110 million total overseas and a weak $67 million total domestic (according to ShowbuzzDaily projections).  That would give PA4 a worldwide total of $177 million, tied with PA2 as the lowest in the still-very-profitable franchise. The biggest gainer overseas this […]

The weekend looks like a decent $124 million for the top 12 films, a little softer than it looked yesterday (but still significantly ahead of the comparable weekends the last few years).  Paranormal Activity 4 gets a little weaker each day and now is projected to total $30.2 million in its opening weekend, although don’t be surprised if […]

  Eventually, every franchise runs out of steam.  (Although they sometimes pick it up again, like Bond James Bond.) OPENINGS:  PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 (Par) is off to a worse start than the last two in the series (the original Paranormal followed a different release pattern and didn’t go wide until its 5th week in theatres).  […]

The fourth up weekend in a row, weekend #42 will be about 19% ahead of the multi-year average for this weekend.  However, Paranormal Activity 4 is on track for an opening weekend way below expectations and easily the softest of the franchise.  The weekend remains relatively strong, however, because of a fairly deep bench of […]

  With what appears to be the exception of a sensational hold for Argo, this weekend is looking fairly lackluster, according to preliminary Friday numbers at Deadline.  PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 (Paramount) of course, will dominate the weekend, and because of its bargain-basement cost, it will reap plenty of profit for the studio.  But at $15M […]

This weekend is on track to be the fourth weekend in a row to be up over the previous years.  Paranormal Activity 4 opens very large but will play out very quickly as the young, horror audience flocks to the first weekend.  Tyler Perry puts down his Madea outfit and his writer-producer-director suit and simply […]