Box Office Talk: Oct 19 Recap

This weekend’s top 10 performed slightly better than last year’s, but I think as a whole it was a disappointing weekend. The two new releases over the weekend SERIOUSLY under performed, and in one case could have potentially ended a franchise before it even started. One film from last weekend, Argo, had a remarkable hold over from last weekend. Further strengthening its outlook come later during awards season.

All good things must come to and, and I’m happy to say that I can see the end in sight of the Paranormal Activity franchise. Paranormal Activity 4 was supposed to be the next in the series to do well at the box office. In some sense of the word,Paranormal Activity 4 was successful, considering it only costs about $5 million to make the movie. However, this was the lowest opening since the first film in the franchise was released. Receiving a Cinemascore of C Paranormal Activity 4 can expect a big drop off next weekend. That’s not to say that we won’t be getting Paranormal Activity 5 next year, because like I said…it only cost $5 million to make.

Let me preface this by saying that I’m an avid fan of writer James Patterson. I've got just about ever book he’s ever written, starting with the Alex Cross series. I know the characters in the books inside and out, and have had opinions on them for a very long time; long before Morgan Freeman ever played Alex Cross in either Kiss the Girls or Along Came a Spider. Now that I've gotten that out of the way….James Patterson is an extremely prolific and popular author, with just about every single book of his appearing on the New York Times Best Seller list. Tyler Perry has a built-in audience with so many fans of his Madea series of films, all of which he written and directed. Simple math would tell you that if you add the two together, the sum would be a financial windfall at the box office, right? WRONG! Although the film received a Cinemascore of A, which should help a bit with word of mouth, so few people saw the film that it will make little difference.

Here’s the entire Top 10 for the weekend:

RANK	TITLE	WEEKEND TOTAL	JOE'S PREDICTION	DOMESTIC TOTAL	WORLDWIDE TOTAL
1	Paranormal Activity 4	$30,200,000 (Estimated)	$45,000,000	$30,200,000 (Estimated)	$56,700,000 (Estimated)
2	Argo	$16,625,000 (Estimated) -14.6%	$13,500,000	$43,191,000 (Estimated)	$43,191,000 (Estimated)
3	Hotel Transylvania	$13,500,000 (Estimated) -21.7%	$10,400,000	$119,000,000 (Estimated)	$187,300,000 (Estimated)
4	Taken 2	$13,400,000 (Estimated) -38.7%	$10,800,000	$105,971,000 (Estimated)	$280,423,000 (Estimated)
5	Alex Cross	$11,750,000 (Estimated)	$19,000,000	$11,750,000 (Estimated)	$11,750,000 (Estimated)
6	Sinister	$9,030,000 (Estimated) -49.9%	$7,700,000	$31,950,000 (Estimated)	$31,950,000 (Estimated)
7	Here Comes the Boom	$8,500,000 (Estimated) -28.1%	$5,300,000	$23,200,000 (Estimated)	$23,200,000 (Estimated)
8	Pitch Perfect	$7,009,000 (Estimated) -24.4%	$5,400,000	$45,769,000 (Estimated)	$46,226,459 (Estimated)
9	Frankenweenie	$4,434,000 (Estimated) -37.1%	$4,200,000	$28,343,000 (Estimated)	$40,243,000 (Estimated)
10	Looper	$4,200,000 (Estimated) -32.3%	$3,900,000	$57,800,000 (Estimated)	$132,800,000 (Estimated)