Moviegoers poured into multiplexes to see a wide range of appealing films powering the box office to the biggest October weekend in history. Leading the way was the new adventure pic Where the Wild Things Are which bowed at number one followed by an exceptionally strong debut for the action entry Law Abiding Citizen in second. The most impressive performance came in third with the national expansion of the indie thriller Paranormal Activity which delivered the best average of any film. The four new wide releases kicked in a stunning $86M powering the Top 20 to $135M, a new record high for the month.
Audiences rushed out to see Where the Wild Things Are making the adaptation of the popular kids book the top film with an estimated $32.5M in ticket sales. Averaging a ferocious $8,693 from 3,735 theaters, the PG-rated pic scored the eighth biggest October opening ever and the third highest for a kidpic during the month trailing only Shark Tale ($47.6M in 2004) and High School Musical 3 ($42M in 2008). It was also the second widest launch during the month after Shark Tale's bow in 4,016 locations.
While the opening weekend was undoubtedly powerful, the long-term outlook is not as clear. Friday began with a potent $12.1M debut but Saturday inched up only 2% to $12.3M. Family-oriented films during the school year typically see large Saturday jumps in sales thanks to the target audience being more available. In recent weeks, Friday-to-Saturday increases on opening weekend for kidpics Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and the Toy Story double feature were 62% and 69%, respectively. Wild Things seems to be playing more to an adult audience appealing to those who read the book as a kid and to hipsters who enjoy director Spike Jonze's unique style of filmmaking.
Jonze took a nine-sentence book, stretched it into a 100-minute movie, and added plenty of new material including names and backstories for all the Wild Things and a deeper look into the home life of the nine-year-old boy at the center of the story. Reviews have been mixed with critics having a wide range of feelings for the film. Warner Bros. invested heavily into the marketing of Wild Things hoping to appeal to the broadest possible audience since the movie is not the typical family film that Hollywood churns out. The $75M production unspooled in 145 IMAX locations which accounted for $3.1M, or nearly 10% of the weekend tally.
Liam Neeson isn't the only actor from across the pond to hit it big with a revenge thriller this year. Gerard Butler enjoyed a surprisingly potent bow for the action drama Law Abiding Citizen, also starring Jamie Foxx, which grossed an estimated $21.3M from 2,890 theaters for a stellar $7,353 average. The R-rated story of a man that plots a series of assassinations from jail to get back at those responsible for the killings of his wife and daughter played to a broad audience with males slightly outnumbering females. Neeson's kidnapping thriller Taken was an unlikely blockbuster last winter when it bowed to $24.7M over Super Bowl weekend on its way to a $145M final.
Butler and Foxx are certainly no guarantees at the box office. The former's action pic Gamer opened to just $9.2M last month while the latter's The Soloist debuted to a weak $9.7M in April. But the actor combo, the appealing storyline, and an aggressive marketing push helped to make it the biggest opening ever in Overture's short history easily beating the $16.3M of last fall's cop drama Righteous Kill with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Citizen should have no problem beating Kill's $40.1M total to become the distributor's top grosser too.
Paramount expanded its micro-budgeted horror hit Paranormal Activity nationwide this weekend following three weeks of limited play and saw sales nearly triple to an estimated $20.2M. Freaking out moviegoers in 760 theaters, up from 160 last weekend, the R-rated spookfest averaged a sensational $26,530 per location matching almost to the dollar the $26,528 average of The Blair Witch Project when it went nationwide during the summer of 1999. That indie overachiever shot up to number two on the charts in its third weekend when it expanded from 31 to 1,101 theaters grossing $29.2M.
| # | Title | Oct 16 - 18 | Theaters | Cumulative | Distributor | ||||
| 1 | Where the Wild Things Are | $ 32,470,000 | 3,735 | $ 32,470,000 | Warner Bros. | ||||
| 2 | Law Abiding Citizen | 21,250,000 | 2,890 | 21,250,000 | Overture | ||||
| 3 | Paranormal Activity | 20,163,000 | 760 | 33,717,000 | Paramount | ||||
| 4 | Couples Retreat | 17,949,000 | 3,009 | 63,339,000 | Universal | ||||
| 5 | The Stepfather | 12,300,000 | 2,734 | 12,300,000 | Sony | ||||
| 6 | Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs | 8,100,000 | 3,037 | 108,284,000 | Sony | ||||
| 7 | Zombieland | 7,800,000 | 3,171 | 60,823,000 | Sony | ||||
| 8 | Toy Story & Toy Story 2 (3D) | 3,011,000 | 1,489 | 28,594,000 | Buena Vista | ||||
| 9 | Surrogates | 1,922,000 | 2,326 | 36,332,000 | Buena Vista | ||||
| 10 | The Invention of Lying | 1,905,000 | 1,624 | 15,495,000 | Warner Bros. |
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