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Paranormal Activity even broke rules once it went national and eventually entered into wide release. After earning $25,711 from 763 venues, its expansion into 1,945 locations meant a drop of only 56% to $11,311. Most titles that expand this much drop somewhere around 70-80% in terms of per-location. The end result is that for five (!) straight weekends, the little horror film that could increased in weekend revenue. It jumped from $77,873 in 12 locations (with only midnight showings) to $532,242 in 33 locations (583% growth) to the aforementioned $7.9 million in 160 locations (1384% growth) to $19.6 million in 763 locations (148%) growth to $21.2 million in 1,945 locations with 12% worth of additional growth. Along the way, it not only eviscerated the reigning king of horror, the Saw franchise, but also desecrated its corpse on the way out. Saw VI's final domestic revenue of $27.6 million is not only easily the worst in the franchise's history; it is also a lower total than the four prior Saw releases earned on their opening weekends alone. Paranormal Activity completely stole Saw's thunder and made that franchise look as old and tired as it frankly is. There is a large deal of irony in this regard. To a certain extent, the success of Paranormal Activity is an example of history repeating itself. In October of 2004, a production with a minuscule $1.2 million budget (which would pay for roughly 100 Paranormal Activities, but I digress) shocked the industry by earning $18.3 million. The original Saw would go on to earn $55.2 million for Lionsgate, and the studio quickly realized they should do a sequel. Every year. No matter what. While the original Saw never won a box office weekend, Saw II, III and IV all dominated the competition, each opening in first place with $31.7-$33.6 million. Saw V absorbed a small amount of slippage as it became the first film since the original to fail to finish in first place. The unlikely combatant, High School Musical 3: Senior Year, beat it handily, $42.0 million to $30.0 million; however, Saw V was still a huge success relative to its $10.8 million budget. Frugal production cost has been the hallmark of this franchise. All of the titles have been made in the $10 million range, which is all that kept Saw VI from being a financial disaster. Had it cost more than $11 million, it would be a box office train wreck. As it is, this is instead a shining example of how opportunity cost can be significant in the box office realm through lost market share, even for titles that are theoretically profitable. With Saw humiliated, Paranormal Activity firmly established itself as the top horror release of the year, the buzz title that everyone had to see. The result of this is that a film that was originally planned to be re-made instead of released in its original format became arguably the most lucrative movie release of the 2000s. Paramount has already announced intentions for a sequel, which is again a case of history repeating itself. Let's hope that Paranormal Activity 2 has a better fate than Book of Shadows, the Blair Witch sequel that earned only 18.8% of its predecessor's domestic take despite costing about 430 times as much.
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