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).  […]

Not a lot of support for scripted programming. ABC:  The Alphabet took the night, winning each hour with its unscripted trio of SHARK TANK (2.0, the highest rated show of the night), PRIMETIME (1.6) and 20/20 (1.4). CBS:  Some of last week’s bump from the elimination of Made In Jersey dissipated, and after a 0.8 […]

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 […]

  When we last left baseball’s beleageured network partner, FOX was trying to recover from a particularly knotty night of rain delays.  The result was that what was supposed to be Wednesday’s episode of THE X FACTOR, cut off before its ending across most of the country, had to be rescheduled to Tuesday Oct 23.  […]

Sometimes stunt casting works. CBS:  On a night when most of broadcast TV was even at best, 2/2 MEN was up a healthy half-ratings point from last week to 4.0, by far its best Thursday rating thus far.  The reason seems to be a much-hyped appearance by Miley Cyrus, who may have brought some new […]