It’s an interesting one-two when it comes to the two new releases at the box-office this weekend. Neither Paranormal Activity 4 nor Alex Cross earned rave reviews from critics, but reviews were hardly necessary for Paranormal to carry on the franchise with big opening weekend numbers on a small, $5 million budget while Alex Cross faces a different conundrum.
Paranormal 4 pulled in $14.8 million on Friday and should end the weekend in the $36 million range as some of that money comes from early Thursday screenings and a “C” CinemaScore isn’t likely to help its legs. The end result will put it just slightly lower than Paranormal Activity 2‘s $40 million opening, which should set the franchise up nicely for Paranormal Activity 5 to go back in time as 3 did and hopefully recapture audience interest on a larger level.
Considering Paranormal 4 finds not only genre competition in Sinister and larger competition overall with the second weekend of Argo and Taken 2 still pulling in dollars, I don’t see the end result as bad as some might considering the whopping $52.5 million Paranormal Activity 3 pulled in only a year ago.
Now when it comes to Alex Cross we’re looking at a film that was rightly savaged by critics and yet Summit was still anticipating around $20 million on opening weekend and already beginning work on a sequel. Budgeted at $23 million (updated from $35 million [source]), after only $4 million on Friday and what will likely be a $12 million weekend, I can’t help but wonder what the decision will be moving forward.
The real kicker here, however, isn’t the box-office, but the CinemaScore. With a 12% rating at RottenTomatoes, audiences go the complete other way and give the film an “A”. Will it lead to solid holdover dollars or will the film falter and fail in coming weeks?
Finally, The Sessions opened on four screens this weekend and pulled in $34,300 on Friday for a $8,575 per theater average. It should play bigger over the weekend and get what is an excellent film off to a good start.
I have included the Friday top ten estimates below and will be back on Sunday with full results.
- Paranormal Activity 4 – $15 million
- Argo – $5 million
- Taken 2 – $4.2 million
- Alex Cross – $4 million
- Hotel Transylvania – $3.6 million
- Sinister – $2.9 million
- Here Comes the Boom – $2.5 million
- Pitch Perfect – $2.3 million
- Looper – $1.2 million
- Frankenweenie – $1.1 million
