As we creep steadily closer towards Halloween, the ghosts are gathering and the American box office has seen a boost from punters clearly looking to get spooked. Horror threequel Paranormal Activity 3 pulled off something of a coup, opening to the biggest estimated figure ever for a horror movie and smashing through Paramount’s expectations. The film, which serves as a prequel to the other two, opened at the top of the charts with an impressive $54 million, which means it’s into healthy profit already given the budget of $5 million.
There was much less good news awaiting the teams behind the week’s other new releases, however, as holdovers **Real Steel **and Footloose held on well to slip just one place down into second and third place respectively. Hugh Jackman and the boxing robots earned $11.3 million in their third week, while the dancing teens scored $10 million in their second.
Paul WS Anderson’s **Three Musketeers **saw their swash severely buckle, opening much lower than Summit’s expectations and only scoring $8.8 million for fourth place. George Clooney’s political drama The Ides Of March took fifth with $4.9 million.
Sixth place went to Dolphin Tale, which earned $4.2 million, while Moneyball was down to seventh with $4 million.
Johnny English Reborn proved to be a damp squib with American audiences, opening in eighth with $3.8 million, though we doubt Universal is too worried as Rowan Atkinson and co proved much popular over here and elsewhere, with the comedy already edging towards $100 million worldwide. Ninth was The Thing, which continued to do lacklustre business (how bad? Last week it opened in third and has already sunk six places) with $3.1 million, while cancer comedy 50/50 was 10th with $2.8 million.
To face your demonic past with statistics, check out the full charts over at Box Office Mojo.