Weekend Box Office (10-21-12): Paranormal Activity 4 drops but still tops while Alex Cross is quite cross.

When you have a sequel that cost just $5 million, it's not really a big deal when your opening weekend drops about 43% from the last time around.  Yes, Paranormal Activity 4 opened with "just" $30 million, which is much lower than the $52 million debut of Paranormal Activity 3 last year and the $40 million debut of Paranormal Activity 2 two years ago.  But with micro-budgets like this, who cares?  Amusingly, it actually followed the exact same midnight-to-weekend pattern as the first two sequels, earning 15% of its opening weekend ($4.5 million) at Thurs night/midnight advance screenings.  Obviously audiences aren't quite as jazzed for the series, which isn't exactly a surprise.  We've had four films in three years.  Even if we admit that the series is dropping faster than the Saw franchise (which took six entries to really drop like a rock), we have to admit that $30 million was the average number for the first four Saw sequels and none topped an opening bigger than $33 million.  Fittingly, it was partially the competition of the platforming first Paranormal Activity that gutted Saw VI (ironically the best entry in the seven-part series) three Halloweens ago, basically tossing the reigning king off the mountain and stealing the crown (read the historical scrolls HERE).

Paranormal Activity 4 vs Alex Cross: John Gosling previews the week's new movies (10-19-12)

The Paranormal Activity franchise is a multi-million dollar global phenomenon and shows little sign of stopping. The origins of the series stretch back to 2007 when director Oren Peli gathered a group of unknown actors together and shot a very small scale scare flick utilizing the 'found footage' technique (to keep costs costs down he even converted his house into a shooting location and set just seven days aside for filming). The story followed a young couple who encounter strange goings-on in their house. Katie claims an evil presence has always been with her, while her partner Micah is skeptical Setting up a video camera in their bedroom, they soon discover unexplained events, which escalate in the space of a few days. Made for just $15K, Paranormal Activity began gaining strong word of mouth thanks to an impressive showing at the ScreamFest Horror festival. This screening ended up securing Peli an agent but attempts to get the film a distribution deal stumbled even after the director (and Miramax's Jason Blum) re-edited the feature for its Sundance debut. A number of DVDs were sent out to any potentially interested party and one managed to catch the attention of Dreamworks execs Stacey Snider and Adam Goodman, who brought the film to Steven Spielberg's notice. The studio quickly cut a deal with Peli, on the proviso that he re-shoot the picture with an increased budget and higher production values. He agreed, on the condition that he could screen his original version for an audience first. When people walked out not long into the screening, Goodman figured they'd backed a failure. However, when he realized that the people had left due to being frightened by what they'd seen, his opinion changed. The remake idea was scrapped and the studio quickly moved to purchase the domestic rights to distribute (via their deal with Paramount) and the international rights to any sequels. Peli then re-edited the film, and altered the ending from the one seen at Screamfest. But, due to ongoing talks between Paramount and Dreamworks regarding their partnership, all of the latter's productions were delayed for the foreseeable future. Only when Adam Goodman became head of Paramount in summer 2009 did Paranormal Activity gain a release date.