Monday Morning Quarterback Part I
By BOP Staff
October 24, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Paranormal Activity 3 became the biggest October opener as well as the biggest horror opener of all-time with its $52.6 million take. To what do you attribute its success?
David Mumpower: In a strange way, Paramount Pictures has shown more reverence to a $15,000 production than George Lucas demonstrated with either Star Wars or Indiana Jones. Rather than discard the original by replacing its ideas with more established commercial packaging, the Paranormal Activity franchise has now employed the same unknown actress twice more than anybody ever expected. Katie Featherston has a better career after two years than Heather Donahue has managed in a dozen years. The rarity of this behavior is such that Donahue is still the best analog for Featherston. Studios protect their investments by casting established names. The fact that she and sweet, stupid Micah have worked three times since the original speaks volumes about how carefully Paramount Pictures has protected this particular intellectual property. Rather than dropping everything but the name as Artisan Entertainment did with The Blair Witch Project, Paramount has taken the bold step of working backward in creating not one but two prequels, making this something of a first in the industry, a fractured time prequel. I bet Steven Soderbergh is kicking himself over the fact that he didn't think of this first. The tender loving care shown in the creation of this backstory has created a high level of viewer trust in the product, a behavior that the studio system unfortunately doesn't accomplish often. I wasn't surprised by the spectacular spike from the opening of the first film to the second and I'm not in any way surprised that a very good second film spiked interest in the third film. This is that rare instance where art and commerce have melded into a massive moneymaking franchise that is maximizing profits in every way possible.
Reagen Sulewski: I still marvel that people can be convinced in ever increasing numbers to pay money for basically the same movie three times. I do think that reviews influenced this number heavily, as this was a project that would be very vulnerable to a slip in quality. The savvy move here was handing it over to a couple of documentarians who appear to have an innate understanding of how to handle this kind of footage. Maybe 1% of the people who go to see this will know who Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman are, but it was probably the biggest move they made to ensure there's a Paranormal Activity 4.
Joshua Pasch: PA3 was successful, in short, because it is a high quality horror flick (a rarity) - and it is part of a supremely well marketed franchise.
I had the pleasure of seeing PA3 at a 10 p.m. screening last week in NYC. The crowd was PACKED with high school aged students who had been waiting in line much of the day to see the film. I had no idea how electric the crowd would be, and it was immensely enjoyable.
Sure, PA1, 2, and 3 feature a lot of the same tricks, but those tricks are quite effective. The introduction of the oscillating fan/camera into this third entry was enormously important to making tension last for such long stretches. In an audience of a couple of hundred folks, all of us were on edge when we were supposed to be on edge, and we were laughing when they wanted us laughing.
The negative sentiments that I've read/heard about the PA franchise comes from two groups: those who really dislike horror films and those who seem to resent the fact that such a killing has now been made three times over using the same low-budget, found footage conceit each time.
My two cents: haters are going to hate. Let them. The movie was frightening Halloween fun. I hope that come next October, for PA4 they add just enough (a la the oscillating camera/fan) to make it feel fresh.
Shalimar Sahota: This is an opening that's way bigger than I imagined. The advertising did not skimp on the scares, so I can only assume that American audiences have a thing for floaty objects and doors that bang shut. I'm kinda with David in that Paramount simply hasn't screwed with the formula. The found footage approach and using no name actors offers a heightened sense of realism that a big budget blockbuster would struggle to match. The positive reviews would indicate that it still works. That Paramount has stuck with this for its two prequels has clearly paid off.
Brett Beach: I will make up for the under-flabbergasting from my compatriots. I find this fairly astonishing. I have noted in the audience analysis that the percent of those over 25 increased with this one, and since they don't necessarily rush out on opening weekend, they could be at least partly responsible. The midnight showings were up slightly over PA2 but even with those thrown out, you have a jump from $34 million to 46 million from one year to the next. That's a 33% increase . . . for a film that was selling itself as another prequel.
Edwin Davies: I'll echo the statements of David and Joshua; Paranormal Activity 3 has done so well because Paramount has invested a lot of time and effort (though relatively little money) into maintaining the intergrity of the franchise and ensuring that the resulting films are actually pretty good. Admittedly it seems paradoxical to use words like "integrity" and "franchise" in the same sentence, but that is exactly the case here. Making each of the subsequent films into a prequel has enriched the back story of the series, rather than diminishing it or making it overly complicated, which seems to have hooked people into the world of these films in a way they might not have had they just followed a traditional horro sequel pattern of abandoning the original cast and characters but keeping the central concept. The strong reviews, which display a noticeable uptick from the second film, which was liked but not as much as the first, probably helped the film leap to the levels that it did since they may have compelled people who were on the fence or willing to wait to check it out this weekend. I'm not sure that it'll have legs - even the best reviewed horror films tend to drop off quickly - but even if it only manages a 2.0 multiplier it would still outgross the first Paranormal Activity domestically, which is a pretty stunning result.
Where is our Treehouse of Horror parody?
Kim Hollis: Do you think this is the high water mark for the Paranormal Activity franchise and that it's all downhill from here, or do you think they'll be able to continue to cultivate more success in the short term?
David Mumpower: The aspect of the Saw franchise's decline that was anticipated in advance here is that there has to be a hook that entices the viewer into seeing the next movie. Saw ran out of those, making each release that much more challenging to justify. By working backward from the original, Paranormal Activity has effectively created a form of cinematic foreplay as they build to the eventual payoff that will occur as the storyline (eventually) moves forward in time. Presumably, this occurs in the fourth movie, meaning that I believe that Paranormal Activity 4 should demonstrate similar opening weekend behavior to its immediate predecessor. The only reason why I'm not 100% certain is that I haven't seen the movie yet, so I'm not sure how satisfying it is. The fact that it's rated fresh on Rotten Tomatoes combined with the generally positive user reviews there and at IMDb indicates to me that this is not a concern although Entertainment Weekly reports that the movie only has a C+ Cinemascore, which is a bit troubling. I'm inclined to believe that Paranormal Activity 3 proved to be enough of a Scary Thrills delivery system that its diehard fanbase returns at least one more time. The perception of that movie, the one that shows what happens after the events of the first three films, determines how much life is in Paranormal Activity post-2012.
Joshua Pasch: I'm less convinced than David that the story's progression is the key to the franchise's future earnings.
My feelings are that people have yet to tire of the effective visceral thrill of the PA-franchise. That is its hook. People began tiring of that Rube Goldberg inspired "thrill" of the Saw franchise after the fifth entry, and I would expect PA to make it at least that far. I actually missed out on the second PA entry, and still found part III to be hugely enjoyable. Hence, my inclination to give more credence the the thematic hook of the franchise over the plot development.
Shalimar Sahota: Last year when the second film opened I thought "that" would be the high point of the franchise, mainly because I wasn't sure how far the concept could go. I felt that a third film, which happens to be another prequel going even further back in time, was really stretching it. God forbid they make a fourth film where we see the evil inside the womb. Rather than milking the Paranormal udder every year, I would prefer if Paramount learned from this and focused on maybe delivering an entirely new (but not that dissimilar) low budget property. Still, if they want to keep this franchise going and have a chance at topping this opening, then I feel that the inevitable fourth instalment has got to be a proper sequel (what happened to Katie Featherston?). Plus, I don't see how anyone can say no to that profit margin. So... same time next year?
Brett Beach: Setting aside the conflicting stories on opening weekend response to PA3, if the makers maintain the same dedication to low budgets, and a familiar format tweaked just enough each time, then I would see PA4 perhaps opening even slightly higher. I have not seen these films yet, but the question does occur to me: who is assembling this footage? (And will that play into the storyline progression?)
Edwin Davies: If, as David says, the fourth film focuses on what happens after the events of the first Paranormal Activity, then I'd be willing to say that it will open higher than PA3. I think that people have invested three films' worth of time to the story so far, and now that all the backstory is out of the way - unless they're going to do a Tremors 4 and tell the story of the characters' ancestors in the Wild West by, I dunno, depicting the events using wood carvings in place of CCTV - showing what happens after the first night would be a big enough hook to drag everyone who has seen the previous films out. After that, I don't see the franchise ever achieving those heights again, and if they don't keep the quality up I can see it dropping off with each subsequent instalment until some other young, hungry franchise takes it down. If they just keep doing prequels, though, diminishing returns will set in much quicker; people might not tire of the concept quickly but they will tire of a lack of forward momentum.
Reagen Sulewski: I expect that by PA7 we'll be watching the investigation of the main character's great-great grandmother's haunting through the use of an astounding new device invented by Thomas Edison.