Box Office Beatdown – October Weekend’s a Wild Rumpus

October 21st, 2009

This weeks winner, cash and art wise.

Top of the charts this weekend was “Where the Wild Things Are”, with $32.6 million in the tank so far. That’s a pretty good performance for a movie Spike Jonze described as “difficult” and was based on a book ten sentences long. It remains to be seen whether it’ll keep doing well outside of hipsterville next weekend.

After a long string of crap, Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx both hit it big with “Law-Abiding Citizen”, raking in $21 million despite being up against a kiddie flick and being released by Overture.

No, not your Thursday night, this weeks beatdown winner

But the real surprise this weekend was horror bulldozer “Paranormal Activity”. A week after it raked in $6 million on less than 200 screens, Paramount opened it on less than 800, maybe because they hate money or something. It wins the beatdown this week, with $19 million in the can and the best per screen average.

This week’s beaten-down award goes “The Invention of Lying”. With its pretty sad $16 million gross, it’s not doing Ricky Gervais any favors. We guess no one wanted to imagine a fat, hostile British guy humping Jennifer Garner.