Weekend Box Office: Is the "Saw" franchise losing its financial touch?

It looks like the durable "Saw" franchise might be showing signs of slowing down. Over the past several years, Lionsgate Pictures has opened a new "chapter" in the torture porn series on Halloween to big bucks and instant profitability, usually in the $30 million range. This year, however, proved to be a bit different. Whether it was due to direct competition from other genre films or whether audiences finally realized that enough is enough already, "Saw VI" pulled in an anemic $14.8 million from over 3,000 screens, less than half of what "Saw V" pulled in a year ago this weekend. And since these films drop like a stone in water as days tick by, watch for this entry to be the lowest grosser of the series to date.

Will this low gross really spell the end of the series? Probably not. A 3-D version of the next film is due in October of 2010, which will no doubt cause a spike in that film's gross as the gimmick did for the recent "My Bloody Valentine" and "The Final Destination". Sigh. I guess it is true what they say about a fool and his money: they were lucky to get together in the first place.

The weak performance of "Saw VI" was no doubt attributed to Paramount's stealth box-office hit "Paranormal Activity", which finally expanded to nearly 2,000 screens to nab a huge $22 million in its fifth weekend of overall release to bring its total near the $64 million. If the film can keep going after Halloween, the magic $100 million mark should be easy for the ultra-cheap thriller to get to.

The $100 million mark might be a difficult one to reach for last week's number one film, Warner Brothers' "Where the Wild Things Are". The expensive children's fantasy directed by Spike Jonze dropped roughly 55% to $14.5 million and a ten-day gross of roughly $54 million. Based on the name recognition, the studio was no doubt expecting more of a blockbuster.

After surprising everyone last week with a big opening, the Jamie Foxx/Gerard Butler thriller "Law Abiding Citizen" surprised the box office again by holding up rather well to deliver $12.7 million to bring its ten-day total to an estimated $40.3 million. Dropping only 39%, the film posted the third-smallest drop in this weekend's top ten. Adults that are no doubt uninterested in ghosts, serial killers or fantasy creatures have been the main driving force behind "Citizen"s sleeper success.

Fifth spot went to the Vince Vaughn comedy "Couples Retreat", which eased back only 35% to $11 million and an estimated gross of $78.2 million. The animated "Astro Boy" crashed and burned in sixth place with a small $7 million gross. The remake of "The Stepfather" held up reasonably well (down 44%) to land in seventh and pull in another $6.5 million for a $20 million gross after ten days.

Universal's "Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant" was DOA in eighth place with a measly gross of $6.3 million. Apparently, those anxiously awaiting the new "Twilight" sequel will not jump at anything and everything that deals with bloodsuckers for a quick fix after all. The ninth and tenth spots went to two Sony hits, the animated "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs" with $5.6 million ($116 million to date) and "Zombieland" with $4.3 million and a to-date gross of $68 million.

The other wide release of the week to crash and burn was Fox Searchlight's Oscar hopeful "Amelia", which pulled in an average $4 million from 800 sites. This was a film that had the star power, but not the reviews, to pull in the adult audience crucial to its success. Finally, the annual reissue of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" nabbed $130,000 from 105 locations, which may signify the final time the Henry Sellick stop-motion classic appears in theaters for quite some time.

This upcoming week, there is only one film debuting: the Michael Jackson concert documentary "This Is It". The Kenny Ortega-directed film debuts worldwide for a reported two-week run and should pull in huge numbers everywhere. How high is anyone's guess, but it is all but guaranteed that there will be a new number one film in town by Wednesday night ('This Is It' opens on Wednesday).