'Paranormal Activity 4' loses steam in fourth outing

This fall has been filled with weekends unexpectedly good (the $50 million opening of Taken 2) and bad (the week The Possession opened was off 38% from the previous year). Underperforming openings meant the box office this year was just slightly up from last year. Paranormal Activity 4 placed first this weekend with $30.2 million. For a horror movie budgeted at just $5
million, that's great, but Paranormal 2 debuted to $ 40.7 million and Paranormal 3 to $50.2 million, making this the first sequel to open lower, not higher. Just because the opening of Paranormal Activity 4 was 40% off the opening of the third film isn't necessarily a bad thing. The Saw franchise has had seven movies to date, and it peaked at the second film. Movies three through seven trended downward. In its favor, Paranormal Activity 4 still has one more pre-Halloween weekend to take advantage of. There will be more competition, in the form of Open Road's Silent Hill: Revelation 3D, but that horror sequel doesn't have nearly as much awareness or marketing support.

Tyler Perry may want to hang up his FBI badge, because Alex Cross opened to just $11.5 million, the star's worst opening ever. It's also under the previous two James Patterson adaptations starring Morgan Freeman that released over a decade ago. Perry fans did show up, as evidenced by the
demographic breakdown: 74% black, 60% women, and 68% over the age of 35. However, Patterson's fans, which tend to be older and skew white, did not turn out, a big miss. People who did show up gave the movie an "A" rating, so perhaps the problems was with the movie's marketing, not the movie itself.

Fox Searchlight's Sundance Film Festival pickup, The Sessions, opened to $30,000 per screen in four locations. The story of a man paralyzed with polio who resolves to lose his virginity has been met with a generally positive critical reception. It's the kind of film that builds momentum with positive word-of-mouth,

so its performance in coming weeks will be telling.

While none of the new wide releases opened as big as expected, it was a great week for holdovers. Argo dipped just 15% to earn another $16.6 million. That's the best hold for a wide release action movie outside of the holiday season ever. While the opening of Argo was below star/director Ben Affleck's previous outing, The Town, Argo has now regained the lead and is tracking ahead of the bank robbery movie.

In third place, Hotel Transylvania held on strong with just a 21% dip to $13.5 million. Taken 2 was right behind, falling 38% for another $13.4 million. That was enough to bring the Liam Neeson-led movie over the $100 million mark. After a soft opening, Here Comes the Boom showed strength by losing just 28% of its audience for another $8.5 million. Finally, Pitch Perfect went down just 24% to earn another $7 million. The under-the-rader comedy never rose above third place, but it could be in the top ten for another week or two thanks to its strong holds week after week.

This Friday, the Halloween-themed comedy Fun Size will open, along with surfing movie Chasing Mavericks, the ambitious literary adaptation of Cloud Atlas, and horror pick Silent Hill: Revelation 3D.