Jon's blog

If the moderate temperatures (in the Northeast, anyway) and blockbuster fare at the box office have anyone feeling a little confused, well, join the club. It turns out though, that Sony's idea of rolling out their late season tentpole "2012," on this the 46th weekend of the year, has some precedent. In fact, you have to go all the way back to 2002 before you hit a group of new releases that doesn't feature a $150+ million film. So we probably should be thinking of the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving as a mini-blockbuster season.

If you're wondering why Milla is so startled, it might have have something to do with the fact that her snoozy alien abduction pic posted a surprisingly nice opening. Coming in at $12.5 million, "The Fourth Kind" was strong enough for a fourth place finish in a crowded weekend that included four new films. "Fourth Kind" managed to outperform the other new horror flick of the week, Richard Kelly's "The Box," which slunk home just shy of $8 million.

Last week we tracked the "Paranormal Activity" breakout story as it began. This week we reach the second chapter.

When are we all finally going to admit it to ourselves: the trailers for "2012" are fucking sweet.

Let the "Paranormal Activity" breakout story begin!

After a little unscheduled break, the Box Office Special is back. And after a messy streak of flops, horror looks to be back too, with "Zombieland" flying out of the gates with a number one finish in its opening weekend. Let's catch up with a handy little chart:

Labor Day, while an awesome excuse to lay around and do nothing for three days, is about as fallow a film going period as you'll find on the calendar. Just two years ago, "Halloween" set a new four-day weekend record with $30 million. Some weekends, that wouldn't even qualify for 2nd place, but on Labor Day it's a record.

Just like that it's over: one of the most highly anticipated weekends by horror fans in recent memory has come and gone. And while the merits of both "The Final Destination" and "Halloween 2" may be debated for some time, the box office results paint a far clearer picture.

In the seven weeks since "Transformers 2" opened the average budget for a weekend-winning film has been $156 million. That's an average, mind you, and it's weighed down somewhat by "Bruno," which opened at #1 after costing only a measly $42 million. Truly, this summer, big-budgets have been king. Even "Bruno" was the most expensive new release in the weekend that it won.

Before diving into this weekend, how about a little history?

With "Iron Man" having opened just three weekends earlier to a stunning $98 million dollar draw, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" jumped out of the gate Memorial Day weekend 2008 to a total just a hair over $100 million. That's two of the 12 largest openings in the span of one month.

But wait, Memorial Day 2007 there was "Pirates 3" for a total of $114 million. And that same month, "Spider-Man 3" at $151, and "Shrek the Third" at $121. All three, of course, are top 10 opening weekend totals.