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Oooh. Scary.

Kim Hollis: Paranormal Activity platformed into national release in 760 locations. It earned $19.6 million, with a per location average of $25,711. Is this more, less or about what you were expecting? Do you think this $15,000 production will earn $100 million domestically?

Brett Beach: I have been only aware of this film for five weeks and already I feel burned out on it. I took the liberty of checking out the plot on Wikipedia (not something I normally do, by the by) and can't say that I feel inspired to see it. Comparisons to The Blair Witch Project aside, the fact that (brilliant) guerilla marketing tactics such as these two films have employed seem to pay off only once every ten years says more for the creators of said buzz (and maybe an end of decade collective anxiety?) than the films themselves. Critical consensus seems near-unanimous positive while I get the impression that audiences are becoming polarized among love it/hate it. $20 million-ish is about what I thought it would this weekend and I think it has a few more weekends left in it for the still curious to get on board. I do believe it will stop about $10 million or so shy of the triple digit mark

Josh Spiegel: Last question first. I think that, depending on how the continued rollout goes from Paramount, this could very easily earn $100 million in the States. As of right now, Paramount hasn't made a wrong step here, and if they keep up the cool demeanor, Paranormal Activity will meet the Blair Witch comparison. I'm a little surprised at how much it made this weekend, not because of the Internet word-of-mouth, but because of the competition from other movies that made a solid bit of change. Still, this movie stands next to Taken and The Hangover as one of the big sleeper successes of 2009.





Tim Briody: A lot depends on how much Saw VI affects it next weekend. If its thunder is stolen by the known quantity (sorry, The Stepfather), then it's got no chance. If it continues to build on this weekend, which for the record, is still outstanding, look out.

Jim Van Nest: If they can add more screens this week, I see no reason for the momentum to stop here. Word about this film is starting to spread crazy wide and if they can find the screens to double its total this week, it will beat Saw VI straight up.

Reagen Sulewski: Hell, I'm starting to wonder if it can earn $100 million in a weekend in the US (it will, of course, still lose money by studio accounting's terms). I think the more remarkable thing is how well this has built without any particular fire to the hype. When Blair Witch hit, it was everywhere and suffered a backlash. This one's avoided mass-media almost entirely, and for that reason it should probably be able to avoid the "it wasn't that good" complainers for a little bit longer.

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