Zombieland Falls To #2 and Paranormal Up To 5

I still haven't seen Zombieland, sad to say but that's college for ya.  According to BoxOfficeMojo in a not so surprising drop, Zombieland falls to second place at the box office with $15million dollars.  The film has nearly made $50million dollars since opening last weekend, easily covering its production costs of only about $23million. 

However, the biggest shocker of the weekend is Paranormal Activity, in only 160 theaters, Paranormal has made $7million dollars!  That to put it mildly is something very unusual when it comes to limited release movies...they just don't earn that much money on such a limited scale.  With a budget reported around $15,000 (smaller than Blair Witches' initial $20-25,000 budget), Paranormal could easily become one of the biggest money makers of the year if expanded into a wide release.  As well as one of the most successful independent films, not adjusted for inflation.

Its very telling in how much interest this movie has and the steam its generating.  I think its safe to say that Paramount will be increasing theaters because of this.  I think making Halloween weekend the official 'wide' release date would be perfect, that would also raise a question.  October 30 is a Friday, Halloween is a Saturday, couldn't get much better.

Until Paramount decides on more theaters, we won't know.  Then again they may decide to keep it in a limited run for a few more week to further generate interest and make it into a big phenomenon before doing anything else.  Next up on the genre slate is the remake of The Stepfather on October 16 followed by Saw VI on October 23.