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The only thing that stands out to me this weekend is Paranormal Activity making 25 million on 760 screens. I don't know if that's a record, but it sure sounds like one (Borat may have done something similar). I'm actually wondering if the Borat effect is in play here. If they had opened PA in a full release, say 2500+ screens, my guess is that it would have easily been the #1 movie of the weekend with over $40 mill. So I have to wonder if they left some money on the table by not going completely wide. As far as the others, WTWTA looks like it has a decent shot at making it to the $100 mill mark if WOM is good. Law Abiding Citizen I didn't see coming. Overall, it seems like a lot of people went to the movies this weekend, from all demos. Couples Retreat feels like a throwaway but still looks on track to get to $100 mill.

Oops, just saw PA did 20 million, confused that it's 25k per screen. Still say it would have done 35-40ish if they had opened it wide this weekend.

Wow, those are some paltry numbers for "Black Dynamite" and "The Boys Are Back."
"The Damned United" and "Good Hair"-- neither of which made Klady's chart--aren't doing appreciably better.
It looks like all of the non-studio business this season is being sucked up by "Paranormal Activity," the Emperor's New Clothes of canny (actually genius) internet marketing. The most amazing thing is the Pavlovian Dog effect it seems to be having on gullible auds who've been convinced that it's the scariest thing they've ever seen when it's actually a lot closer to watching paint dry. I guess P.T. Barnum was right.
Nice expansion for "A Serious Man," although I still don't see Focus ever taking this even half as wide as "Burn" or "No Country." Considering the relatively low cost, though, it's still a modest winner.

Like BLAIR WITCH, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY is gonna divide the 'net feedback, because it relies on really old-school techniques and the concept that your imagination can make stuff scarier than being shown something obvious. In fact, PA's most direct, obvious blatant scare was also the cheapest that felt the most fake.

But some people don't like the subtle approach. That's cool. It's certainly not the most terrifying movie I've ever seen, but it's got some nice fun scares, and it's awesome to watch it in a packed theater.

I just noticed that "Good Hair" IS on the chart; mea culpa.
And "N.Y. I Love You" clearly isn't going to equal the success of "Paris Je'taime."
Maybe the producers should have held out for a better class of director than Brett Ratner.
(I guess Breck Eisner was busy that weekend.)

As far as the response to Paranormal Activity, I can only offer this anecdote... On my personal site, someone accused me of being paid off by Paramount for my Paranormal Activity review. Fair enough, that's a common flame that any number of film critics get on their comments boards. But I've never been accused of being a studio shill for giving a movie a 'C+' and calling it 'not particularly scary'.

The Black Dynamite gross is sad. Saw it last night and it was fucking hysterical from beginning to end. Wild Things in the afternoon and Dynamite in the evening made for an amazing day at the movies.

How many times will we see tonight and tomorrow some variation of this headline: "Saints Are Giants Killers"?

@telemachos. You can thank Spielberg for that final blatant and completely unecessary scare. Subtle has never been his forte. Ever since the ol head rolled out in JAWS and blew them away in that Dallas sneak, it cemented how Spielberg approached genre cliches. Damn the subtlety, lets hit em in Peoria!

Yeah, the final scare is the movie's most lame and blatant...but what else can you do for a button in a scenario like that? It sounds like the original ending was basically the same concept, except weaker.

The businessman in me knows its the correct ending and there's a reason why Spielberg has an incredible batting average. The movie lover in me inwardly groaned at it. I would have been content with a similar 'boo' style ending just something more left field. I could smell that scarefart coming a mile off.

Apparition overwhelmed with BRIGHT STAR and THE YOUNG VICTORIA? Not focused on BLACK DYNAMITE which was "dumped" on them by Sony Pictures Classics? Bob Berney is one of the best, but they need help in marketing moving forward.

The head scare in Jaws is one of the best ever. If you hate that one, then you should hate any jump scare used by any director, ever. Even Val Lewton, classiest horror director ever (sometimes to the point of being a touch dry) did that stuff.

Havne't seen Paranormal Activity yet, but that looks like the perfect kind of ghost story to me.

Unsubtle or not, that final scare worked for me. The movie earns the right to use it by starting as simple as it did, and slowly working it's way up. By the end I was tense and uneasy enough that it gave me a bigger jump than anything in quite a while.

I like BLAIR WITCH but have always felt it needed a more visceral "boo" moment on which to send me from the theater. The ending it has is fine and admirable. Not saying a witch should have jumped out or something like that. Just a stronger, more decisive jolt to put a capper on the tension.

Like jeffmcm I haven't come up with a better ending for P.A. The original sounds fine, and hope to see it on the dvd. I actually think the ending makes a bit of thematic sense. To explain my (possibly simplistic) reasoning would require spoilers and I don't wanna do that. But I can see a sort of "insult to injury" message in those final seconds.

Some folks will not like it for being too subtle, some will not like it for allegedly spoiling the subtlety. It's another parlor trick or stunt that's gonna divide people. It worked on me, though.

Nothing about Paranormal Activity made any sense, so the ending just fit in with the rest of the film.

Parenthetically, am I the only one who expects more from his R rating than a couple of yelled F-bombs? Maybe a nice verite sex scene, or a drill to the side of the head. Hell, the main actress had the best set of melons I've seen on screen in years. It'd have been great to see them for my 17-and-older ticket.

What people keep forgetting about Paranormal Activity is that it's a real film about the hauntings in this particular house. I know some documentaries take license with the facts, but I appreciate the fact that they didn't fake anything in this film and just told the most honest version of this story that they could, with the footage available.

martin, please tell me that was meant to be sarcastic. It's hard to tell tone on the internet, but you do realize Paranormal Activity isn't real footage, right?

Wait, wha? It looked real to me, and I'm a pretty discriminating viewer.

"Nothing about Paranormal Activity made any sense"

Why do you say that? Everything about the movie made perfect sense to me, within the context of this particular setting, with the probably exception of the unsubtle ending.

I mean, people do realize it's as much a movie about dealing with douchebag boyfriends as it is about a haunting, rigt?

Agree with Wrecktum on the R rating vs the melons. Got to be one of the slowest paced comedies I've seen this year. The last toss was fun, though.

Law Abiding Citizen could be this fall's Taken. Generic looking revenge movie strikes it big. Critics hate it, but audiences seem to love it.

Both with A- cumulative ratings from Yahoo Users, while their average critic ratings are both in the C range. A lot of the user ratings say something to the effect of "Critics suck, this rules!"

Audiences did go to see "Law Abiding Citizen." Little early to say they seem to love it. Let's check back after a 60 percent dropoff.

Re-posted from dead thread (re - why LAC did so well)...

Law Abiding Citizen is a adult-starring, mid-budget star-driven thriller that looks appealing in a saturday night at the movies way. Since few of these get made anymore, the few that do (Vantage Point, Taken, etc) should expect to open well as there still is such a demand for an 'old-fashioned pot boiler'. The movie is trash, inexplicably stupid trash, but I wasn't bored and I do sincerely miss the genre, as well as the constant employment that it provides for character actors.

indiemarketer, Sony Pictures Classics has nothing to do with BLACK DYNAMITE.

BLACK DYNAMITE was actually bought by Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group (not Sony Pictures Classics), and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group asked Apparition to release this film in US theatrically.

PLEASE, NO SPOILING PARANORMAL ACTIVITY! I dunno what y'all wrote, but I just scrolled past all of it. I don't wanna be reading about what the final scare is.

However, I did read

"The most amazing thing is the Pavlovian Dog effect it seems to be having on gullible auds who've been convinced that it's the scariest thing they've ever seen when it's actually a lot closer to watching paint dry."

Because - HEAVEN FORBID - audiences should actually disagree with you and actually DO think it's scary. What a crazy thought.

Not sure why The Maid wasn't put into LA until next week. Locations with heavy latino population seemed like a given.

"I like BLAIR WITCH but have always felt it needed a more visceral "boo" moment on which to send me from the theater. The ending it has is fine and admirable. Not saying a witch should have jumped out or something like that. Just a stronger, more decisive jolt to put a capper on the tension."

oh, no way man! the ending of 'blair witch' is perfection and one of the best finishes to any spooky movie ever, because it's both subtle and shocking, and requires the viewer to think and have been paying attention to detail in order to understand just how bloody awful it is

(and i love ben gardener's head. how else would hooper have dropped that great honking tooth?)

* "Because - HEAVEN FORBID - audiences should actually disagree with you and actually DO think it's scary."

Post-facto rationalization, along with various group-related influences, are fairly well documented phenomena - context is REALLY REALLY important to how we experience things. If you watched it at home in a brightly lit room with a couple of beers and friends, you would not feel anywhere near the same as you would when seated in a darkened room with whimpering teenagers giving you not-so-subtle cues "You should be scared".

It's entirely subjective, so Movieman's "it's actually a lot closer to watching paint dry" assertion may not be a true objective measure either, but given the viral nature of the marketing there's a reasonable chance that there's strong collective cues going on and it may not stand up to repeated viewing.

"PLEASE, NO SPOILING PARANORMAL ACTIVITY! I dunno what y'all wrote, but I just scrolled past all of it. I don't wanna be reading about what the final scare is."

you can't 'spoil' this movie as almost everything is pretty much telegraphed....but thanks for the info on what you 'don't wanna be reading'...because several of us really, really care....

I first saw Paranormal Activity at home, on my computer, with no advance knowledge or even available online info, from a DVD screener, with the original festival ending...two years ago.

And found it DAMN scary. Been trying to tell everyone about it ever since.

You can't truly 'spoil' the movie because it's primarily a visceral, in-the-mood experience as opposed to a plot-based narrative experience. But yeah, you can still 'spoil' the movie just by telling what happens, which is, in this case, even more of a true spoiler than 'the butler did it' or whatever.

And yeah, Foamy, I agree with you that watching this in an immersive theater surrounded by other people is likely to be a different experience than under other circumstances. That's to be expected. And it's not like there is such a thing as an 'objective' measure when it comes to film art anyway.

Scoot, I know you don't like me but if people are typing spoilers for a movie that's - technically - not even in wide release yet, then that's not cool. Some of us don't actually know everything about every movie we see beforehand. If the end is telegraphed during the movie then so be it, but some people haven't seen the movie to know where it's heading.

And, thanks for acting like an arse to a perfectly reasonably request.

I'd say cinema experiences alter a lot of movies. Comedies, especially, I think can be altered by the company you're watching it in. Same goes for horror. But if someone sees this movie in a crowded theatre and is scared what's the problem? If that's how someone experiences the movie and that's their reaction then isn't that something? I'd hazard a guess and say if you're watching a scary movie with the lights on then you shouldn't be watching a scary movie at all.

"oh, no way man! the ending of 'blair witch' is perfection and one of the best finishes to any spooky movie ever, because it's both subtle and shocking, and requires the viewer to think and have been paying attention to detail in order to understand just how bloody awful it is"

I always took the ending for more of an "oh...shit" moment where you realize that the characters have found themselves in the last place they'd want to be than something meant to make you jump out of your seat. It also leaves room to wonder exactly who is with them and if that person hadn't been around all along.

Nobody typed any spoilers so you're flipping your shit over nothing. The movie is just being discussed. I don't understand what the hell you're on about.

Get a grip, my man.

indiemarketer... black dynamite wasn;t dumped by SPC... it was bought by Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group, which has been discussed on this blog quite a bit.

Apparition doesn't have the money to release films like this, though to Berney's credit, at least he seems to have gotten the jokes while Screen Gems and SPC did not.

It's a real shame that the film is getting such a soft release, purely as required contractually. Great movie. DVD saved it... DVD killed it.

Thanks Mary Chan and David Poland for clarification/amplification.

Apparition may not have the money, but apparently not the passion nor personnel nor commitment to "work" BLACK DYNAMITE. Needed better marketing materials, smarter targeting, but more importantly a grass roots effort. 70 screens is also another misstep in Distribution in my opinion.

But what do I know...I don't have my own blog...just agree on the quality of the movie that nobody will see.

They actually did make as much as an effort, maybe even more of an effort, than I expected on the publicity front... though a lot of that may have been the actual producers of the film pushing.

70 screens and no TV support is a disaster for a movie that should have grossed no less than $30 million. This is the kind of movie on which Paranormal Activity should be a marketing influence, whereas the spin that PA is a trend for the mainstream is a rather silly notion. Same, kinda, for day-n-date. Great for indie, terrible for mainstream releases. When your target is lower, the tools are quite different... or should be.

I don't know whether Apparition have money, but it doesn't matter.
Because it is very likely that Sony pays P&A (print and advertising costs) for the theatrical release of BLACK DYNAMITE; just like what Sony did when Sony released other films theatrically through Samuel Goldwyn/IDP.

Furthermore, Sony made a large marketing commitment when they acquired BLACK DYNAMITE. Maybe Bob Berney just don't know how to use the P&A budget from Sony.
http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2009/01/19/second-sundance/

So afterall, it looks like Bob Berney should be blamed for the failure of BLACK DYNAMITE, not Sony.

With due respect, as you are well informed, Marychan, but P&A commitments made at festival are "monkey points" as Eddie Murphy called them. Nicole reported what she was told, but the people behind the movie knew what was and wasn't coming when they did the deal. They hoped that it would be better than this, but the "large marketing commitment" is less cash than many SPHE direct-to-DVD titles get.

Also, Sony keeps an eye on their money and the marketing effort on all of these lay-offs.

The problem is not that Sony needs to be blamed. This half-ass release was inevitable as soon as none of the in-house distribution entities at Sony bit on the title.

Sometimes, Sony does take a lot more interest in how things go down. The Squid & The Whale, laid off to Samuel Goldwyn, was one such circumstance. But more often than not, nope.

Thank you very much for your infos, David.

And you are right that most of Sony's lay-offs didn't do well theatrically. (The most notable exception would be FIREPROOF, which grossed $33 million in US theatrical release.)

"JANKY PROMOTERS" POWER.

Seriously, ICE CUBE and MIKE EPPS, and it opens in ONE theater in L.A., the second-run Beverly Center? I'd never even heard of it, but the depressingly low-rent ad in the Friday Times made me feel kind of sad for it. Cube is a pretty big name... are he and Epps really the leads, or just on the poster to give it some name value but they just have cameos?

Cube and Epps are indeed the leads... and it's easily the least of their 4 screen teamings. Really just dull despite a workable premise. That said, you would think Weinstein would've made some attempt to milk some theatrical money from it as the stars would've sold it to some extent. This is the same company that got behind Who's Your Caddy?, after all...

"It also leaves room to wonder exactly who is with them and if that person hadn't been around all along"

exactly, hallick, and funny you should mention that because i have a friend who is convinced that this scenario you hint at is indeed what transpired (i saw it in the cinema with him as part of a small group of us, but two bugged out because they couldn't handle the hand-held-induced motion sickness and felt like they were gonna hurl, so then there was 3), and even tho that particular scenario isn't my gut feeling of what actually happened in the cottage, there is no way to dispute that it is entirely possible and therefore his interpretation is as real to him as mine is to me and there is no way to know who is right -- except i think i'm right because in my mind how i interpret stuff is the 'right' way ;-) -- and that is why the end of 'blair witch project' isn't merely epic, it is LEGEND!

The scenario I hinted at leah was just speculating on my part; and I'd be pretty disappointed if that was the "answer" to the mystery, but I like that this final moment of the film can suggest more than one outcome.

The movie as a whole gets a good bashing for not being a scare-fest, but I loved it just as much for the opportunity to watch those three characters disintegrate as a group and as individuals in the midst of all their confusion.

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT is still brilliant and works on many levels.

yeah, 'blair witch' is the antithesis of the modern-day 'scare-fest', relying almost entirely on the location plus extremely clever sound design and 'reacting' from the three leads to elicit fear. virtually none of the horror is conveyed visually; the minimalist production design relies on our instinctive fear of 'the woods', the dark and getting lost for atmosphere and tone (just the simple cracking of twigs off in the dark gets the imagination working overtime) and there are really only two or three visual cues in the entire film until the finale, and yet i find 'blair witch' far creepier/scarier than the vast majority of unimaginative 'try-hard' modern horror churned out these days

Agreed. I've seen I don't know how many hundred horror movies, and Blair Witch, alongside The Exorcist and only four or five others, is one of the only movies that's actually legitimately scared me since I was a kid.

I love horror movies that aren't a constant barrage of wannabe jolts and big noises. You see something like 30 Days of Night, and it just comes off sort of pathetic.

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