Couples Retreat Wins, Paranormal Activity Huge

Published by Jeff Leins on: October 11th, 2009

The ensemble comedy Couples Retreat made $35.3 million this weekend, well over expectations and competition only from holdovers.  But the big story is Paranormal Activity’s massive success on just 159 screens.

The PG-13 comedy’s win is finally good news for Universal who has been in a slump with box office bombs all year.  The win comes amidst an executive restructuring at the studio and despite a drubbing by critics (13% on Rotten Tomatoes).  But people showed up for the sixth movie collaboration between (bloated) Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau, among others.

Unfortunately the early success could spell a couples repeat and another excuse for the stars to vacation on the studio dime if the movie is able to sustain for its $70 million budget.  Negative word of mouth should show a drastic drop next weekend, especially against more formidable opponents.

Zombieland came in second with $15 million, falling only 39% from a big opening and so far doubling its production budget.  Cloudy with Meatballs landed in third in its fourth weekend, the strongest movie of the fall season with another $12M and a cumulative $96.3 million.  In fourth was the Toy Story and Toy Story 2 double bill from Disney/Pixar with an impressive $7.7 million and total of $22M.  Not bad for a four-hour engagement only able to play three times a day.

Paramount’s ultra low-budget Paranormal Activity rocketed from 20th up to fifth place with $7.1 million in only 159 locations (an estimated $44,440 per theater).  The roughly $11,000 horror flick had only been playing midnight showings, but a sly “demand it” in your city marketing campaign expanded the showtimes and screens.  Now with over a million demands, the movie is going wide next weekend.  I saw it this weekend and will have my thoughts up on it as soon as I can.

The rest of the line-up was holdovers from previous weekends, a fall weekend with not much to offer due to fallout from the late 2007 writer’s strike.  Surrogates is still a bomb, The Invention of Lying was less than Ricky Gervais deserves, and Whip It is a lackluster directorial debut for Drew Barrymore.

3-Day U.S. Weekend Estimates:
1. Couples Retreat  $35.3 million
2. Zombieland  $15 million
3. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs  $12 million
4. Toy Story/Toy Story 3D  $7.7 million
5. Paranormal Activity $7.1 million
6. Surrogates  $4.1 million
7. The Invention of Lying  $3.4 million
8. Whip It  $2.8 million
9. Capitalism: A Love Story  $2.7 million
10. Fame  $2.6 million