Paranormal Activity 2 (Paramount Pictures Corporation)

Had Paramount’s Paranormal Activity 2 played on a snowbank to elk in Sundance it would have made a profit from it’s ridiculous $3 million budget.

But the news is that Activity is the highest grossing weekend horror film ever with $41,500,000.

And incidentally, it’s the top draw this weekend.

If Paramount brass can find a half empty glass on the exec dining room table it’s the news that their phenom lost considerable impetus, petering out 35% from Friday to Sunday.  They got the frontload and the rest is cytoplasm.

Last week’s champ, Jackass 3-D is second with $21,600,000, for a two week total of $87,147,000 from a $20 million budget.  So, Paramount has the two top films with shoestring budgets.

Red from Summit Entertainment did $15 million with two weeks out and a total gross of $43,483,000.

that’s impressive for the Bruce Willis action-comedy, but the budget is $58 million.

Although it jumped from 28th to fourth, still disappointing is the Clint Eastwood-directed, Matt Damon-starring Hereafter with $12,005,000.  And that’s only $12,320,000 after two weeks (with word of mouth).  A long way for Warner Brothers to climb with it’s $50 million budget.

Dropping two slots to #5 is Sony’s The Social Network with $7,300,000.  But that’s $72,931,000 after a month from $50 million spent (and that doesn’t included publicity and the distributor’s legal larceny).

Rounding out the top 10:

6.  Secretariat:  $6,917,000

7.  Life as We Know It:  $6,150,000

8.  Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole:  $3,175,000

9.  The Town:  $2,720,000

10.  Easy A:  $1,750,000