Midnight Box Office (10/21/11): Paranormal Activity 3 scores $8 million in "midnight" shows. It's looking like a $48-52 million opening weekend.

I put the word "midnight" is quotes because Paramount was nice enough to offer 10pm shows in many theaters last night as well as the customary 12:01am screenings.  So, with the announcement that Paranormal Activity 3 made $8 million last night, I'm going to assume that they mean the 10pm and 12:01am shows.  While there may be some folks (like myself in fact) who checked out a 10pm screening who would not have bothered with a midnight showing, it stands to reason that most of the people who checked out a 10pm screening probably wouldn't have had much of a problem pulling a midnight shift either, so for the moment let's presume the effect of those blessed 10pm showings are negligible.  The math on this one is pretty easy.  If you recall, it was Paranormal Activity 2 and it's $6.3 million midnight gross this time last year that led me to start playing this game of 'midnight-to-weekend math'.  That sequel scored a record at the time for an R-rated midnight debut, which has since been beaten by the $10 million 12:01am showings of The Hangover part II.  Paranormal Activity 2, befitting its appeal as a midnight party movie (last night's audience was more fun than the movie itself), pulled in a hefty 15.5% of its $40.6 million weekend total at midnight.  A similar performance for this picture would give it an opening weekend total of $51 million.  So it stands to reason that the third picture should do about the same number, perhaps a little more due to progressive sequel-front-loading.  So, offhand, the opening weekend for Paranormal Activity 3 should fall somewhere between $48 million (if the number is 16.5% of its total) and $59 million (if the midnight number is just an unlikely 13.5% of its total).  Either way, Paramount has another cheap smash hit on its hand, which guarantees that we'll be seeing Paranormal Activity 4 this time next year.  Now I'm off to write my review.

Scott Mendelson