I really enjoyed Where the Wild Things are. It is definitely not kid-friendly, but I'm glad it finished on top. Cant wait to get it on Blu Ray!

I still stand that Wild Things is kid friendly, though more for the 8 and up crowd. That said, it's not for everyone's taste for sure.

Happy it received the budget it did though and WB has to be raking in cash from more than just the tickets for this one I am sure.

Where The Wild Things Are begin well, but not great. With $100M production budget he has still a lot of work to do. Law Abiding Citizen had a excelent result and The Stepfather also begin good. Next weekend will be the battle of the terror: Paranormal Activity vs Saw. What movie will win? And The Vampire´s Assistent? I think will have the same numbers that Sorrugates. Only next weekend will see.

Next week:

Saw VI (26 million)
Where the Wild Things Are (20)
Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (17)
Law Abiding Citizen (15)
Astro Boy (15)
Paranormal Activity (13)
The Stepfather (10)
Couples Retreat (11)
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (6)
Zombieland (4)
Amelia (2)

@m1: These are estimations, not official predictions!

m1, Amelia is estimated to be in 800 theaters. You may want to revise accordingly.

I guess WTWTA WOM is just not good, or it's just really frontloaded- it pretty much stayed flat yesterday. Which is a shame, it looks terrific. I think we are looking at around an $85m-$90m total right now.

Excellent start for Law Abiding Citizen. I really underestimated the appeal of this film, and it shows that R-rated action films can still be successful. $50m+ looks attainable.

Paranormal Activity had a solid expansion, and continues to thrive on solid WOM. Next weekend should tell us where it is going, but $80m looks doable, with the possibility for more. It should be the #1 horror film of the year.

Decent hold for Couples Retreat, but WOM seems to be kicking in fast. With nothing opening against its demographic for weeks, the century mark could be possible.

Impressive for The Stepfather, I see around 30m while this fast fades from anyone's memory.

Cloudy continues it's amazing holds. $130m is where this should end up, which would be a 4.3x multiplier, and for the Fall that is incredible. Zombieland seems to be hurt by PA, but $75m looks like a solid goal. Toy Story gets hit hard, but this should have been expected, since many rushed to see it before. And A Serious Man continues it's solid expansions. Overall, it's a good weekend.

I think your way to generous on VA. While I like JCR he is not a boxoffice draw. Astro Boy Will Deffentially beat it. Also it's been tracking pretty poorly since the begining of October.

My Predictions:

Saw VI (28 million)
Where the Wild Things Are (18)
Astro Boy (15)
Paranormal Activity (13)
Law Abiding Citizen (11)
Couples Retreat (10)
Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (7)
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (6)
Zombieland (4)
Amelia (2)

I've been meaning to ask this for a little while now, at least since it was first brought up during Watchmen last March. Does a movie need to make two and a half times its budget domestically or internationally to be deemed a hit? If so, Wild Things might have a bit of work to do for that to happen.

I saw "Law Abiding Citizen" weeks ago and was not impressed for about half the running time. Kind of surprised it caught on. I liked "Where the Wild Things Are" last Tuesday but it left me cold for chunks; still…a one-of-a-kind film. I enjoyed it, but I'm wondering what the audience consisted of. I saw "The Stepfather" on Friday and it was pretty much a worthless pile of poodoo. The lack of money is deserved.

Next week will be "Saw VI," "The Vampire's Assistant," and "Astro Boy," all of which will do well, probably.

I saw Paranormal Activity this weekend and I LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT!!!!

suurrogets is awesome! i wonder how many people would want to live in a chair and have thier consciuos in a beautiful young sexy body!!!??? sign me up!!!it better be a lazyboy and padded and a drink holder and frig,and toilet in it too!!id never get out!!we are going to see zombieland tuesday!!

I am planning on seeing "Where the Wild Things" are very soon. I'm just not sure whether I'll watch it while I'm up at college or when I return home for fall break so I can watch it with my 11-year-old sister. Is this movie really not for kids? I mean, she DID sit through "2001: A Space Odyssey"… twice! There wouldn't be any harm in taking her to it, I don't think. :)

I was sort of rooting for "Law Abiding Citizen" to do well, even though I haven't seen it and I probably won't see it in theaters (however, I may on DVD). But I was being conservative and only expecting $10-15 million. Glad to see it did $20mil. And while I can't say I'm glad to see that "Stepfather" also doubled my expectations, I'm glad at least that it served the box office well.

Congrats to Paranormal for another great weekend! I hope it gives Saw VI a run for its money next weekend (will Paramount expand the release even more? Maybe to 2000 theaters? Or only to 1000?)

keep demanding paranormal activity. get it in every theater. its only got 760 theaters. one of them is not my theater

Larmey, other then "Law" and maybe "Stepfather" you just nailed the numbers this week.

'Build it and they will' come is going to be my new philosophy. Or is there pent up demand from people previously being careful with their budgets? Commenter "Bram" came closest to predicting this weekends very high box office total. This should mean another very high box office for next weekend.

I would like to give moral support to WTWTA. While the scuttlebut is don't take your kids, that does not take away from this unique film's imaginative interpretation. Adults seem to like it alot. The only issue with box office is whether a sequel or similar films will be made. No sequel, but I never thought there would be. Someone might actually do a similar film though, thinking "I can make a more kid friendly one for less money and cleanup!" @JM: re taking your younger sister. I haven't seen the movie, but I heard the issue was a role model one. The movie apparantly shows all kinds of unacceptable behaviors with no consequences to them. If your sister is not showing any signs of hooliganism already, one film won't…I don't know, it's not a constructive film for kids, apparantly.

Laremy, I'm not understanding your comment on Paranormal Activity beating Miley's number. Could you please clarify?

Step Father was very similar to Disturbia to me. Substitute a crazy neighbor for a crazy stepdad and you got the same film, in my opinion.
Paranormal Activity was mind-blowing. great job college kids
Law Abiding Citizen was good. Butler played his role extremely well.

Next Weekend:
1. Saw 6 – 21 million
2. Vampire's Assistant (would have Astro Boy here but havent seen much marketing for film) – 18.5 million
3. Astro Boy – 16.7 million
4. Paranormal Activity – 15 million
5. Where the Wild Things Are – 14. 4 million
6. Amelia – 12.3 million

If Astroboy fails will it have been considered inappropriate for children? :)

@Mileyfan: For highest per theater avg in recent memory. Best of Both Worlds had a number around $46k per theater as I recall, last weekend Paranormal hit $49k. It's basically a barometer on how full you can a pack each and every theater.

@Colin: If a film hits 2.5x domestically it's most likely delivering a nice profit with any international love at all. The 2.5x equation is based on worldwide cume though, and it factors in marketing, film costs, distribution costs et al… I've also heard 3x quoted, so it's anywhere from 2.5x to 3.0x, just depending on how hard they market the film.

@laremy: I have discovered your difficulty. You are relying on the Box Office Mojo Chart Watch methedology. They report opening weekend box office numbers UNDER X number of theaters. The proper way to report the numbers is OVER X number of theaters, as in Hannah Montana opened with $45,560 per theater, a record for openings in OVER 600 theaters (683.) Paranormal Activity got $49,379 in 160 screens. That's probably a record for over 100 screens, but all kinds of movies have beaten it for UNDER 100 screens. Michael Moore's Sicko got $68,969 in one theater, Capitalism: A Love Story got $57,991 per in four theaters, U2's concert movie regularly grosses extremely high per theater in a few theaters. The more theaters, the harder it gets. When Paranormal Activity opened in a more comparable to Miley 760 screens, it grossed only $26,530 per screen. Even if you threw out the results for the 160 screens doing repeat business and only included the 600 new screens, Paranormal would not have broken Miley's record. Another example is Borat which opened at $31,607 at 837 screens, but got $11,018 per when it went wider to 2,566 screens. When I go to the Box Office Mojo site, click on "Weekend", and scroll down, I don't find it unusual to see films with very small releases that have per screen averages over $45,000. Paranormal may be breaking it's own records, I don't know since my interest in researching it is limited, but it hasn't beat Miley's record. No offence.

Not much surprises this week, aside from Zombieland and maybe Citizen. At this point I wouldn't be surprised at whatever amount of money Paranormal makes, and WTWTA made as much money as was pretty much expected. (I wonder, though, whether it's gonna make it $100M or not, and how hard is it gonna fall next weekend; Bridge to Terabithia, for example, dropped just 36%, despite being marketed as a typical family-friendly fairy-tale too). Even with the arrival of PA and LAC, Zombieland's 48% drop was a huge surprise to me. I mean, a) it's a third week, b) it fell only 40% last weekend, c) it added 133 theaters, d) it has a great WOM. And it falls 48%. Odd, really odd. Though it's a success already anyway.

@Nick: Maybe potential Zombieland goers wer siphoned off by Paranormal Activity. I can't think of any demographic or grouping that might go to Zombieland who wouldn't be just as happy with Paranormal, including people dating.

@Nick: One last post. If you compare Paranormal Activity to Boarat in terms of per screen average, namely $26,530/760 vs. $$31,607/837 and decide Paranormal is going to be 84% as successful as Borat going forward, you get $107,864 million. This gives you a good ballpark from which you can adjust your numbers as you feel justified. Good Luck.

Alright, part of me kinows I've seem to have lost it, but since it looks like there won't be anymore comments on this post, I'll do one more.

According to box office mojo, The Hannah Montana/Meet Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour holds the record for top weekend theater average for a wide release. They have Paranormal Activity's wide release listed at 760 theaters. I believe they consider a wide release to be over 600 theaters, but they don't say that.

Thanks for the therapy, now I can move on. :)