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Jason Lee: I heard about this relatively recently but saw its "word-of-mouth" power firsthand this Friday when I went to see the Toy Story double feature and witnessed huge lines of teens waiting in line. Its weekend venue average of $49,690 is outrageous, though I'll be interested to see how it performs as it continues platforming out.

Reagen Sulewski: It's about time that someone used the power of this recent iteration of viral media to launch an underground film. There's a lot of power in the collective experience and in being on the cutting edge of something, and this campaign utilizes both of those. Not to mention the idea of getting people to request the film - not to get all marketing weasel here, but encouraging people to take ownership of a project like this is powerful stuff as far as inspiring action.

David Mumpower: If you ever meet anyone who claims they knew this would happen, they are either lying or have no idea how box office behavior works. Consider the following: Paranormal Activity's first weekend per-venue average was $6,489 at 12 theaters. The second weekend's per-venue average was $16,129 at 33 theaters. The third weekend's per-venue average was $49,694 at 160 theaters. These numbers are exactly backwards of how the process is supposed to work. In fact, the third weekend per-venue average by itself represents a factor of three more than the film cost to make. I guess that audiences want to be shocked about once a decade by a homemade horror film. Odds are that we are watching the box office story of the year with Paranormal Activity.

Reagen Sulewski: That's somewhat mitigated by expanding to more regular screenings from midnight only stuff, but any way you slice it, those are huge per screen numbers this far into its release.

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