box office (165 posts)

Sony Pictures

This Is It? Hardly. 

Sony announced today the Michael Jackson concert movie, originally billed as a two-week-only event, will stay in theaters through Thanksgiving weekend.

The un-surprise move comes after This Is It led the box-office competition with an estimated $21.3 million Friday-Sunday, and upped its five-day worldwide haul to $101 million.

Stay tuned for the complete weekend standings—and the reason why Miley Cryus is the anti-Jackson, and vice versa.

Sony Pictures

This Is It? Hardly. 

Sony announced today the Michael Jackson concert movie, originally billed as a two-week-only event, will stay in theaters through Thanksgiving weekend.

The un-surprise move comes after This Is It led the box-office competition with an estimated $21.3 million Friday-Sunday, and upped its five-day worldwide haul to $101 million.

Stay tuned for the complete weekend standings—and the reason why Miley Cryus is the anti-Jackson, and vice versa.

Sony Pictures

No, Michael Jackson wasn't Batman or Miley Cyrus. But more important, he wasn't the Jonas Brothers.

Jackson's This Is It scored a $7.4 million opening day, Sony Pictures estimated today.

Among concert films, the take puts This Is It right behind the eye-popping opening day of Cyrus' Best of Both Worlds show, and safely ahead of the Jonas' expectations-game loser, The 3D Concert Experience. 

Comparisons between the three movies are far from perfect, not the least of which is because neither the Cyrus or Jonas Brothers film starred the world's biggest pop star in his final farewell.  

So, given those high standards, how did This Is It measure up?

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Paramount Pictures

Can there ever really be too much of a good thing?

Paramount Pictures is willing to test that theory. "We have the rights on a worldwide basis to do 'Paranormal 2,' studio Chairman Brad Grey tells the Los Angeles Times of newly-released sleeper-hit Paranormal Activity. "We're looking to see if that makes some sense."

The out-of-nowhere box office powerhouse cost just $15,000 to produce, and has already brought in an upwards of $62.5 million.

Would a Paranormal sequel go the way of the second Blair Witch Project—absolutely nowhere? Only time will tell.

________

This one might just be the next addition to our Movies from the Future photo gallery.

Paramount Pictures

Paranormal Activity has gone where The Blair Witch Project didn't: to No. 1.

The bedroom-bound chiller won the box-office battle of the horror movies over Saw VI, and, in its fifth weekend, led the the weekend competition with an estimated $22 million Friday-Sunday take.

In second place, the debuting Saw VI ($14.8 million) was the smallest Saw yet, but still relatively big—a phrase that could not be used to describe two other new releases, Astro Boy ($7 million) and Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant ($6.3 million).

Stay tuned for the rest of the Top 10—and an update on the search for Hilary Swank's missing-in-action Amelia.

Warner Bros/ Pictures

The verdict's in: Where the Wild Things Are is not too scary for kids for Hollywood.

Director Spike Jonze's debatably dark take on the Maurice Sendak children's classic beat back the bad buzz with a first-place, $32.5 million box-office debut, per estimates.

Elsewhere, the supposed-to-be-scary Paranormal Activity ($20.2 million) had its biggest weekend yet, while Jamie Foxx's contribution to the Gerard Butler Movie of the Month Club, Law Abiding Citizen ($21.3 million), acquitted itself okay.

Stay tuned for the complete Top 10 standings.

Universal Pictures

Vince Vaughn was money. Paranormal Activity was phenomonal.

Vaughn's Couples Retreat banked the year's biggest opening for a romantic comedy, with a much-bigger-than-expected $35.3 million, No. 1 Friday-Sunday debut.

Paranormal Activity, meanwhile, packed its 159 theaters, rising all the way to fifth place with a scary-good take of $7.1 million, a mere 645 times the horror flick's $11,000 micro-budget.

Stay tuned for more results from a weekend that was great for Hollywood—but a disaster for yet another High School Musical alum.

Columbia Pictures

Yes, vampires are hot. But zombies are not exactly dead.

The zombie comedy Zombieland had a nifty box-office weekend, topping all films—and its budget, with an estimated $25 million Friday-Sunday.

Drew Barrymore's Whip It, the star's directing debut on roller-derby wheels, got lost in the pack, opening in sixth place with $4.9 million, while the Toy Story franchise's comeback clicked, grossing $12.5 million for its 3D double-feature bill.

Stay tuned for the complete Top 10 standings.

Kevin Mazur/AEG via Getty Images

Edward Cullen has met his match: Michael Jackson.

Since going on sale Sunday, tickets for Jackson's This Is It have been seller hotter than, well, Robert Pattinson's vampire.

Fandango said the concert movie was its new top seller, ousting The Twilight Saga: New Moon. MovieTickets.com said it had already recorded more than 550 sell-outs. And to put a global point on it, Sony Pictures bragged about big business from to Britain to Japan.

This Is It opens Oct. 28, if you don't count sneaks on Oct. 27. Sony says the movie, culled from rehearsals for the late Jackson's not-to-be London shows, will play only two weeks.

And if the limited-engagement line sounds familiar, then perhaps you've rushed to buy tickets to a concert movie before…

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Paramount Vantage

The nation's financial meltdown proved a gold mine for Michael Moore.

Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore's latest him-versus-them adventure, was a bottom-line success in very limited release, grossing more money at each of its theaters than any film this weekend. Or this year.

Overall, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs remained No. 1, with an estimated $24.6 million, thanks to remarkable staying power—and the unremarkable debuts of Surrogates ($15 million) and Fame ($10 million).

Stay tuned for the complete Top 10 rankings.

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Courtesy of Sony Pictures Animation

Matt Damon, Jennifer Aniston and Megan Fox got dumped on. By a breakfast, lunch and dinner. 

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, the CGI family food-fest, led all films—and stars—with a 3D-assisted $30.1 million Friday-Sunday, estimates showed.

Damon's The Informant! was actually a fairly fat second, with $10.5 million. But you had to scroll down further to find Aniston's rainy-day romantic drama Love Happens ($8.5 million) and Fox's horror-comedy Jennifer's Body ($6.8 million). 

More results:

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The new Twilight movie doesn't open for two more months.

Oh, did we make that sound like a long time? What we meant was, "New Moon opens Nov. 20—GET YOUR TICKETS NOW!! HURRY!! HURRY!! AAAGGGHHH!!"

Not to cause a panic, but advance-ticket sellers are already reporting sold-out screenings for the obsessed-over sequel.

MovieTickets.com says more than a dozen of its show times have been picked clean. Fandango says New Moon is its top-seller heading into this weekend. (E! Entertainment and Fandango are both owned by Comcast.)

Sorry to worry you if you don't have your tickets yet. We just thought you should know. So you can start worrying.