Weekend Box Office: that was 'It' for 'This Is It'

This past weekend's Halloween box office proved to be downright frightful as ticket sales sunk to their lowest level of 2009 so far. With Halloween falling on a Saturday this year, the box office took a sizable hit on All Hallow's Eve, with even the King of Pop failing to divert people from parties and trick-or-treating.

Prior to its release, "This Is It" was riding a wave of hype usually reserved for mega-budget blockbusters like "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" and "Avatar". But since the subject of the film was the recently-deceased Michael Jackson, a fair amount of that hype was justified as it would be the last time MJ's fans may have the chance to see their idol performing on stage (although I am sure there is plenty of unseen concert footage kicking around...SEQUEL!!!!!). With fans camping out to purchase tickets, the box office wags started proclaiming that the movie would do anywhere from $250-400 million in its first seven days worldwide.

Well, it's time for a bit of a reality check. "This Is It" didn't destroy the box office as anticipated. In fact, it did roughly 1/4th of what they were hoping for. Over the weekend, the Jacko picture moonwalked its way to $21.5 million, bringing its overall five-day total to $32.5 million. Add to that an additional $68 million from overseas, and the movie did pull in over $100 million. It might not be the monster grosses Sony had been hoping for, but that nine-figure haul is still pretty damn impressive, especially for a rehearsal film. Of course, Sony pulled a fast one by saying that the film would only run for two weeks, only to "extend" its run (no doubt an attempt to recoup some of the $60 million it dished out for the distribution rights), which might explain why the first five days pulled in so much money.

After nabbing a surprising first place last weekend, the Paramount/Dreamworks acquesition "Paranormal Activity" held strong in second place for a $16.5 weekend gross and a drop of only 21%. To date, the little film that could have pulled in $85 million dollars. While it will no doubt start fading fast now that Halloween is over, there is still a good chance that it will cross the $100 mark when all is said and done.

"Saw VI", on the other hand, will be lucky to reach the $30 million mark, which is what previous installments in the torture porn series ended up doing on their opening weekends. The latest entry dropped 61% from last weekend to $5.56 million and a measly $22.9 million gross to date.

Elsewhere, third place went to the Jamie Foxx sleeper hit "Law Abiding Citizen", which dropped 41% to pull in $7.3 million for an overall gross of $52 million to date. Fourth spot went to the Vince Vaughn comedy "Couples Retreat" with $6.1 million in sales to add to its overall gross of nearly $87 million. "Where the Wild Things Are" continued its downward spiral, dropping a huge 63% (no doubt affected by Halloween falling on a Saturday) to $5 million and a three week gross of $62 million.

"The Stepfather" enjoyed a little support from Halloween and dropped only by 45% to $3.4 million. "Astro Boy" got hit almost as hard as "Wild Things" by dropping 55% to tie with Fox Searchlight's "Amelia" (down 23%) to each add another $3 million to their coffers. Rounding out the top ten was the film du bomb, "Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant", which imploded 55% to $2.7 million and a ten-day gross of $10.5 million.

On Friday, watch for Scrooge to kick Jacko out of the top spot with "A Christmas Carol", Cameron Diaz plays with "The Box" (huh huh huh...box), some more people deal with otherworldly things in "The Fourth Kind" and George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey are "The Men Who Stare At Goats".