Paramount PicturesSo, if you spend $15,000 to make the first Paranormal Activity, what happens when you spend a "whopping" $3 million to make its sequel?
A lot.
The weekend box-office results:
Paranormal Activity 2 killed with an estimated $41.5 million. On Friday alone, the camcorder scare-fest—now with kids!—grossed $20.1 million, including $6.3 million from midnight screenings, a new record for an R-rated movie, Box Office Mojo reported.
The original 2009 flick, which did just fine phenomenal, never made more than $8.6 million in a single day, or $21.1 million in a weekend.
All in all, Hollywood's on a roll. A bankroll.
Jackass 3D, which last weekend posted the biggest-ever fall opener, took a dive to second, but still pranked its way to another $21.6 million for a very grand total of $87.1 million.
Bruce Willis' gang from Red ($15 million; $43.5 million overall) had the best weekend among the movie-star set.
Clint Eastwood's and new-dad Matt Damon's mortality-minded Hereafter ($12 million) was solid enough in its wide-release debut.
Emma Stone's Saturday Night Live hosting gig coincided with the return of her Easy A ($1.8 million; $54.8 million overall) to the Top 10.
Despite a chart-topping start, Oliver Stone's and Michael Douglas' Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps ($1.2 million; $50 million overall) dropped out of the Top 10 after a four-weekend stay that failed to clear its reputed $70 million budget, and inspired a "Five Things That Went Wrong…" headline. The film is Box-Office LaBeouf's lowest-grossing wide-release title (by a lot) since before Disturbia.
Here's a complete look at the weekend's top-grossing films, per Friday-Sunday estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations:
- Paranormal Activity 2, $41.5 million
- Jackass 3-D, $21.6 million
- Red, $15 million
- Hereafter, $12 million
- The Social Network, $7.3 million
- Secretariat, $6.9 million
- Life As We Know It, $6.2 million
- Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, $3.2 million
- The Town, $2.7 million
- Easy A, $1.8 million