LOS ANGELES — An indie blockbuster considered last year to be lightning in a bottle has evolved into the most successful horror franchise of the moment.
Last weekend’s estimated $40.7 million debut for Paranormal Activity 2, the highest ever for a horror film not accounting for ticket price inflation, immediately makes it a viable series for Paramount Pictures. The studio may now come out with annual installments, as Lionsgate has done for the last six years with its low-budget horror phenomenon, Saw.
The hugely successful debut of Paranormal Activity 2 overshadowed a soft start for the new Clint Eastwood-directed life-after-death drama Hereafter, which took in $12 million during its first weekend in nationwide release.
Ticket sales fell a hefty 35 percent from Friday to Saturday, indicating that attendance was heavily frontloaded, which is common for youth-skewing films. Still, audiences gave the picture a good if not great average grade of B, according to market research firm Cinema-Score, giving Paramount hope that grosses won’t falltoo precipitously this weekend when Saw 3-D, the last entry in that series, debuts.
The opening of Paranormal Activity 2 marks the second weekend in a row that Paramount has enjoyed a big opening for a movie aimed at young audiences. The surprise blockbuster Jackass 3-D declined a sizable but not huge 57 percent, to $21.3 million on its second weekend in theaters.
Hereafter was a more expensive than normal movie for the prodigious Eastwood, with a production budget of about $50 million due to extensive digital effects. That makes its $12 million opening particularly troublesome for Warner Bros. The movie, in which Matt Damon leads an ensemble cast exploring what happens after death, performed particularly poorly in the South.
Eastwood has had hits that opened slowly and built buzz, such as 2004’s Million Dollar Baby, which Warner Bros. is hoping will happen with Hereafter. In good news for the studio, today’s Saw 3-D won’t compete for Hereafter’s older adult audience to whom the director appeals - 80 percent of those who saw the film were over 30.
The average audience grade for Hereafter was aC-plus, indicating that word of mouth may not be good. It could end up performing about as well as 2008’s Changeling, which opened to $9.4 million and ended up with $35.7 million domestically.
The action comedy Red fell to third from second in its second week, bringing in $15 million. Ticket sales total $43.5 million for the film, distributed by Summit Entertainment.
Red, based on a graphic novel, stars Bruce Willis as a recently retired spy who must find out who is trying to kill him. The cast includes Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich.
The Social Network, Columbia’s drama about the founding of Facebook, dropped to fifth from third with $7.3 million. The film, starring Jesse Eisenberg as Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, has taken in $72.9 million since its Oct. 1 release.
Secretariat, about the 1973 Triple Crown-winning thoroughbred racehorse, fell to sixth place from fourth with $7 million for Walt Disney Co.
BOX OFFICEThe top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are: 1. Paranormal Activity 2, Paramount, $40,678,424, 3,216 locations, $12,649 average, $40,678,424, one week.
2. Jackass 3-D, Paramount, $21,313,815, 3,111 locations, $6,851 average, $86,861,041, two weeks.
3. Red, Summit, $15,034,916, 3,273 locations, $4,594 average, $43,518,185, two weeks.
4. Hereafter, Warner Bros., $12,018,147, 2,181 locations, $5,510 average, $12,333,504, two weeks.
5. The Social Network, Columbia, $7,276,972, 2,921 locations, $2,491 average, $72,907,728, four weeks.
6. Secretariat, Disney, $7,001,159, 3,108 locations, $2,253 average, $37,444,068, three weeks.
7. Life as We Know It, Warner Bros., $6,136,454, 3,019 locations, $2,033 average, $37,601,835, three weeks.
8. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’hoole, Warner Bros., $3,248,019, 2,236 locations, $1,453 average, $50,244,733, five weeks.
9. The Town, Warner Bros., $2,749,090, 1,918 locations, $1,433 average, $84,681,614, sixweeks.
10. Easy A, Columbia/Screen Gems, $1,748,906, 1,632 locations, $1,072 average, $54,784,148, six weeks.
11. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, 20th Century Fox, $1,244,851, 1,255 locations, $992 average, $50,001,986, five weeks.
12. My Soul to Take (3-D), Universal, $1,072,515, 1,689 locations, $635 average, $13,985,795, three weeks.
13. Waiting for “Superman,” Paramount, $774,502, 290 locations, $2,671 average, $3,704,280, five weeks.
14. Alpha and Omega (3-D), Lionsgate, $727,103, 727 locations, $1,000 average, $23,512,875, six weeks.
15. It’s Kind of a Funny Story, Focus, $677,162, 560 locations, $1,209 average, $5,109,189, three weeks.
16. You Again, Disney, $650,902, 901 locations, $722 average, $24,051,083, five weeks.
17. Devil, Universal, $642,035, 642 locations, $1,000 average, $32,437,925, six weeks.
18. N-Secure, Freestyle Releasing, $551,096, 445 locations, $1,238 average, $1,964,477, two weeks.
19. Inception, Warner Bros., $500,140, 452 locations, $1,107 average, $290,381,264, 15 weeks.
20. Toy Story 3, Disney, $472,842, 350 locations, $1,351 average, $413,485,965, 19 weeks.
MovieStyle, Pages 36 on 10/29/2010