Paramount Pictures’ Dreamworks Animation release of Puss in Boots in 3D easily clawed its way to the top of the weekend chart with $34 million. The Shrek 2 spinoff character was an obvious choice for his own movie given the appeal and popularity of Puss as effectively voiced by actor Antonio Banderas. Also starring Salma Hayek and Zach Galifianakis the PG-Rated film will be like catnip to family audiences looking for a fun romp at the movie theater. The IMAX presentations earned a healthy $3.2 million on 294 global screens.
Additional Puss in Boots info courtesy of Paramount pictures:
Demos:
59% female vs. 41% male
45% under 25 vs. 55% 25 and over
35% of the audience was Hispanic
3D was 51% and Imax was 7%
Paranormal Activity 3 surprised everyone last weekend with its monstrous $52.57 million debut and scared up another $18.5 million this weekend against a steep horror-genre typical 67% second weekend drop. Audiences, in the mood for some appropriately scary Halloween entertainment lined up for the profitable fright fest which has earned $81.3 million to date.
In third place Fox’s sci-fi thriller In Time starring newly minted movie star Justin Timberlake took in $12 million. Set in a retro-future where people can pay to stop aging when they reach 25 years old, the film shows the inevitably unpleasant consequences of what happens when such an unnatural option is made available to the populace.
Fourth place goes to Paramount’s Footloose in its third weekend with a gross of $5.4 million after solid mid-week numbers a total gross to date of $38.4 million.
With a lower-than-expected $5 million the Top 5 is rounded out by a very inebriated Johnny Depp as Journalist Paul Kemp in Film District’s big screen adaptation of Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson’s novel The Rum Diary. The novel written in 1961 but not published until 1998 was shepherded to the big screen by Depp who previously appeared in another Thompson screen adaptation, 1998’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
An up weekend (by 8% vs. the same weekend a year ago) at the box office continues to chip away at the year over year revenue deficit as we charge toward what looks to be a very solid Holiday movie season at the nation’s theaters.
Weekend Box Office
Top Movies for Weekend of October 28, 2011 (Estimates)
Movie Weekend Gross Total to Date
1 Puss in Boots (G) $34.0M $34.0M
2 Paranormal Activity 3 (R) $18.5M $81.3M
3 In Time (PG13) $12.0M $12.0M
4 Footloose (PG-13) $5.4M $38.4M
5 The Rum Diary (R) $5.0M $5.0M
