Looks like Taken 2 will be battling with Jackass 3-D for second as the best October opening seems to have remained safely in the hands of Paranormal Activity 3 at $52.5 million. However, $50 million for a film as bad as Taken 2 shows how much people love sequels regardless of perceived quality. This also marks the second #1 for Liam Neeson this year after The Grey topped the charts back in late January.
Taken 2‘s opening also sets the table for a competitive month of films with Argo and Sinister doing battle next weekend with fantastic reviews for both films already logged. The weekend after that will have Paranormal Activity 4 vying hard to top its predecessor and at the end of the month Warner Bros. will hope to make a little coin on Cloud Atlas. Could be fun and there are even a few more titles to consider. You can check out the full October schedule here or get the exclusive RopeofSilicon October wallpaper here.
As far as predictions go on Taken 2, Laremy was correct having it at #1, but his $36.5 million was a bit shy. In the comments, however, CJohn‘s $52.9 million was a strong pick as he thought we might have an October record. He wasn’t too far off.
The weekend’s other new wide release Frankenweenie seems to have stumbled due to genre fatigue. The film had to contend with the already released stop-motion Halloween-themed ParaNorman and Hotel Transylvania and when you’re the last to hit theaters it definitely isn’t going to serve you well. The pic brought in a mere $11.5 million this weekend and I have a hard time believing will be able to sustain, especially with Hotel Transylvania still in theaters, and still bringing in good money.
When it comes to predictions on Frankenweenie, Laremy went with the ParaNorman opening of $14.5 million with an overbid while Bustray comes in with a solid, on-the-nose $11.5 million prediction while a lot of the readers had it in the high teens and some even in the 20s. Not a great showing for a rather decent film. Timing can mean a lot in this biz.
Looking at the hold overs from last weekend, Hotel Transylvania is holding on extraordinarily well with $27 million, only a 37% drop from its September record-breaking opening. Rian Johnson‘s Looper didn’t fare too poorly either, bringing in $12.2 million, just a 41% drop from its $20.8 million opening last weekend.
Elsewhere, Butter hit theaters after its On Demand release in September and didn’t do so well bringing in only $75,000 from 90 theaters. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, however, managed to expand with a decent $1.5 million from 221 theaters for a $6,900 per theater performance and a tenth place finish.
Finally, The Paperboy was delivered into only 11 theaters and pulled in $110,000 for a $10,000 per theater average.
As I said above, next weekend brings Ben Affleck‘s Argo and the well-reviewed horror Sinister to theaters and they’ll be joined by Kevin James’ latest fall-down-go-boom “comedy” Here Comes the Boom as well as Martin McDonagh‘s Seven Psychopaths. It’s a weekend that could bring in some big bucks or prove to be too much to chose from.
Anyone care to take some early guesses before your final predictions in Laremy’s Oracle article next Thursday?
