After last year’s pummelling at the hands of surprise box office champion Paranormal Activity, the people behind the Saw franchise decided two things: one, that they’d finally put Jigsaw to rest (no easy task, since the moral-driven serial killer has been leaving a deadly legacy despite shuffling off the mortal coil in the third film) and two, that they wouldn’t get beaten again. Which was achieved thanks to Paranormal Activity’s sequel opening last weekend and dropping sharply in the face of horror competition this Halloween weekend. Still, Saw 3D didn’t exactly hit it big, arriving on a quiet three days with no other first-weekend competition and putting $22.5 million in the bank.
As mentioned, Paranormal Activity 2 saw its ticket activity drop by nearly 60%, making $16.5 million in its second weekend. That was still enough to drive it up to a $65.6 million total so far, which isn’t bad considering it was made for $3 million, as opposed to Saw 3D’s $20 million. Red’s old spies held on to third place with $10.8 million, reaching the point of making back its $58 million budget after just three weeks on release. If you want to see the further adventures of Bruce & co, you might be in luck.** Jackass 3D **sank to fourth place with $8.4 million (but has now crested $100 million in total) and Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter dropped one place to fifth, making $6.3 million.
True-life horse drama Secretariat held on to sixth place, taking $5 million, with The Social Network slipping down to seventh with $4.7 million.** Life As We Know It** dropped one place to eighth and $4 million, while The Town clung on the ninth with $1.9 million and Conviction jumped into the top 10 by going wider, making $2.8 million.
To put the charts into a spring-loaded buzz saw trap, head on over to Box Office Mojo.