'Paranormal Activity 3' freakishly successful with $54 million opening weekend

By Sarah Sluis

Paranormal Activity 3 was this weekend's success story, earning $54 million and the title of biggest fall weekend. The horror franchise appears to have taken the mantle from the Saw franchise, which had a seven-movie run before sitting out the Halloween season this year. Rotten Tomatoes critics rated the movie 71% positive, which is high for a horror movie, and especially a horror sequel. Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, the directing duo behind Sundance documentary splash Catfish, which critic Maitland McDonagh called a "master class in blurring the line between fiction and documentary," applied their skills to the found footage-styled film with aplomb. The third installment will likely pass $100 million, the same as the first movie, and ensure there will be a Paranormal Activity 4 next Halloween.

Last year, Warner Bros. and Summit both had plans for a movie about the three musketeers, but Summit's Three Musketeers 3D won the game of chicken by speeding up production and shifting forward the release date to April 2011 (Well, that didn't happen). But it appears Warner Bros. and would-be director Doug Liman may have the last laugh, because Summit's swashbuckling drama debuted to just $8.8 million. Overseas, audiences were more receptive, but in the U.S. the movie found support only among older male viewers.

Americans don't always get the British sense of humor, so it's no wonder the English spy comedy Johnny English Reborn fell flat in front of U.S. audiences, barely ticking up to $3.8 million. Canadians, a former colony who still share the Queen with England, were more receptive to the antics of Rowan Atkinson, showing above-average receipts.

The market for faith-based movies like Courageous and The Blind Side has been hot, but that doesn't mean every God-inflected film is a winner. The Mighty Macs, which combines faith and sports, opened with just $1.1 million. Meanwhile, Courageous finished four spots higher even though it's in its fourth week, earning $2.5 million.

Opening on the wide side for a specialty film with 56 screens, Margin Call finished with $582,000, a few times the average Wall Street bonus. The drama, which centers on a critical 24 hours early in the financial crisis, has topicality on its side.

A movie about a cult and starring a previously unknown Olsen sister? Count me in. Sundance favorite Martha Marcy May Marlene averaged $35,000 per screen at four locations, a sign the indie will play well in coming weeks. Though it doesn't have much publicity, the documentary Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey finished with $25,000 on its single screen, which probably would make Elmo himself shriek with glee. The movie has played very well on the festival circuit, so perhaps tiny distributor Submarine Deluxe can turn the movie's great opening weekend into a sustained, high-grossing run.

This Friday, the sci-fi offering In Time goes up against Johnny Depp in The Rum Diary and what's sure to be a CG-animated behemoth, Puss in Boots.

Two 'Three Musketeers' projects move forward

By Sarah Sluis

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Hollywood is full of eyelash-batting people who cozy up to an idea and then go off and develop it on their own. I've written about this trend before, and another battle seems to be heating up.

Currently, there's not one but two Three Musketeers projects in the works. Each one will want to release before the other, so 2011 may be the year of feathered hats and swashbuckling swordsmen---for better or worse. Unlike Baz Luhrmann's Alexander epic or Sacha Baron Cohen's Sherlock Holmes adaptation, both of which were nixed while their competitors' projects moved forward, all six musketeers are going into production this fall. Here's how the two projects stack up:

Three Musketeers	The Three Musketeers
Summit will distribute	Warner Bros. will distribute
From the director of �Resident Evil'	From the director of the �Bourne' films
Trio played by Ray Stevenson, Matthew MacFadyen, Luke Evans�who?	Haven't gotten that far yet
But awesome villains! Christoph Waltz and maybe Orlando Bloom (he's more of a yawn, but eye candy for some)	Maybe they can take some of the rejects from Summit's auditions?
To be released in stunning 3D	Not so fast�you'll also need 3D glasses for this one
Described as �modern but still a period piece.' Isn't that an oxymoron? Clarified as, we will be zooming in on the action, not the corsets and men wearing tights.	From the producer of �Sherlock Holmes,' so expect a mix of annoying matte backgrounds and a general lack of realism
Director Paul W.S. Anderson has been working on the project since October �09	Director Doug Liman was just hired and has a reputation for messy, overbudget productions
With casting and legwork done, and filming starting in September, Summit's likely to be first to the finish	But could Liman's version be better? Or will everyone be sick of all those sword battles? Plus, I'm still recovering from Dumas adaptation �The Man in the Iron Mask'