(“IS YOUR DAUGHTER’S ROOM THIS WAY?”)

THE BOX OFFICE WIPE UP, OCTOBER 26, 2009
In a surprise move, today’s box office estimates reveal that horror movie fans may have a brain, as Paranormal Activity outgrossed Saw VI by seven million dollars.  I normally wouldn’t root for a movie grown-ass men are trying to say is haunted, but it’s pretty easy to root against Saw VI.  At least now we know that, if provided a decent alternative, you sick freaks that absolutely need horror movies will avoid the blatantly mass-produced ones.  This was the worst opening for a Saw movie since Saw I.

Where the Wild Things Are fell a surprising 56% from its opening weekend and looks to have a tough time recouping its $100 million budget.  Where were you at this weekend, marketing slugs?  Notice how they always take credit for success but never failure?

Wild Things rustled up an estimated $14.4 million, lifting its total to $54 million in ten days, but its drop was much steeper than Bridge to Terabithia and other similar titles. [BoxOfficeMojo]

Tough luck, WTWTA.  But take solace in the fact that you made a movie unique enough that the best comparison industry analysts could come up with was f-cking Bridge to Terabithia.  That’s gotta be a victory of some sort.

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Nothing opened wide this weekend besides Couples Retreat and your mom’s legs, so it wasn’t a huge surprise that Couples Retreat was number one at the box office, earning $35 million.  It played on a measly 3,800 screens, so kudos to that plucky underdog.  It still has a way to go to earn back its $70 million budget.  People have been wondering how a basic rom-com could’ve cost that much, but the answer is simple when you imagine Vince Vaughn, Faizon Love, and Jon Favreau at the same buffet.

Distributor Universal Pictures’ exit polling indicated that the “humor” and “Vince Vaughn” were the top reasons people saw Couples Retreat. [BoxOfficeMojo]

Reasons three and four were “(unintelligible Chewbacca groans)” and “I thought this was the Dairy Queen”, respectively.  The other big story was Paranormal Activity grossing $44,000+ per location, meaning it nearly tripled its budget on each screen it played.  It also broke Platoon‘s record for highest-grossing film playing on less than 200 screens, all while getting pretty good reviews.  Analysts have been quick to hail its marketing campaign as a runaway success.  But don’t think for a second that this means I’m giving Steven Spielberg a pass for his “my DVD was haunted” story.  Only when it’s Steven Spielberg in Hollywood could a grown man get away with saying he owned a haunted DVD without rightly getting fired, shunned, pantsed, and wedgied.

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(“Haha, Steben tole me if I shave my wattle I ged da pet da kitty.”)

Remember that Paranormal Activity trailer from a while back?  The one that showed people getting really scared over a movie that didn’t look that scary?  Well it turns out one of the scared people was… Steven Spielberg!  (*Macauley Culkin face slap*) It’s true!  And he wants you to know that he’s either really stupid or thinks you are!

Steven Spielberg was certain his copy of “Paranormal Activity” was haunted.

It was early 2008, and the director’s DreamWorks studio was trying to decide whether it wanted to be a part of the micro-budgeted supernatural thriller. As the story goes, Spielberg had taken a “Paranormal Activity” DVD to his Pacific Palisades estate, and not long after he watched it, the door to his empty bedroom inexplicably locked from the inside, forcing him to summon a locksmith. [oh my gosh, the ghost was watching your porn!]

While Spielberg didn’t want the “Paranormal Activity” disc anywhere near his home — he brought the movie back to DreamWorks in a garbage bag, colleagues say  — he very much shared his studio’s enthusiasm for director Oren Peli’s haunting story about the demonic invasion of a couple’s suburban tract house. [LA Times blog]

Wow, you mean he’s a producer on the same movie that this preposterous story is about?  And the people who work for him corroborate it?  Jeez, what are the odds.  You know, I think maybe my hand is haunted.  It keeps wanking dismissively, and I was just sitting here reading a story about Steven Spielberg.  Spooky. 
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It’s been said many times before, but it’s kind of silly to use focus groups and test audiences as a gauge for anything, given the kind of people who are willing to stand outside for a couple hours in the middle of the day on a weekday to see a free screening of something they’ve never heard of.  It’s like saying, “We’re gonna have to make some changes, the story just wasn’t resonating with the carnies and Walmart greeters we found hanging out at the Arby’s.”

Anyway, this Paranormal Activity trailer takes the novel approach of using a split screen to show audience reactions to the film at a screening.  Problem is, we see people FREAKING OUT because A DOOR SLAMMED BY ITSELF!  My first thought was that these idiots were high, stupid, or probably both.  Then again, these were some of the comments on the video:

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