Hint: Not really. It's a franchise weekend through and through, great for the 18-25 demographic and Paramount Pictures itself, which will earn back the combined budgets of its two newest hits by, say, lunchtime on the West Coast. But how will they fare for the weekend as a whole? Let's discuss!
NATIONAL OUTLOOK
· Paranormal Activity 2: The sequel to Oren Peli's staggering microbudget success is, as Stephanie Zacharek will tell you a little later this morning, not going to break any new conceptual ground. That's the bad news. Still, there's probably enough there to flatter movie audiences into thinking they're not just getting robbed blind like they did after Blair Witch 2, and it's the last actual "scary" movie of the Halloween season to open before Saw 3D's splatter comes along to hijack the holiday. Together that means decent word-of-mouth and long-ish legs -- or at least longer than Jackass 3D's, which should drop more than 50 percent to settle in around $23 million. Paranormal, meanwhile, doesn't need the 3-D gimmick to rake up first-place grosses. Just a "2" will do, thanks. FORECAST: $31.5 million
· Hereafter: After a decent limited opening, Clint Eastwood's maudlin, self-aware meditation on life, death, the afterlife and the fuzzy specters that seem to inhabit it goes wide. Which is, like, thank you Jesus, if only to get those frigging horrible commercials of my MLB playoffs. "You have no idea how it is," Matt Damon emits in a mode one intensity level above the puppet that played him in Team America. And then Jay Mohr shows up, and you're like, Oh, so this movie really IS about life after death. Anyway, Stephanie saw it; she can tell you more. Your parents will probably go, too, which means you'll know what they're calling about on Sunday or Monday. Answer at your own risk. FORECAST: $11.2 million
REGIONAL OUTLOOK
Man, there is nothing out there this weekend. If you're in New York, I guess it's always worth checking out the latest Frederick Wiseman film; Boxing Gym is exactly what it sounds like, with the veteran documentarian chronicling the goings-on of the R. Lord's Boxing Gym in Austin. And at a lean 91 minutes, it doesn't even require the half-day time commitment usually mandated by Wiseman's workplace epics. (A full review is forthcoming later today.) The highly recommended My Dog Tulip opens in L.A., meanwhile, and in Chicago you're finally getting a look at the bizarre, infuriating (in kind of a good way) Agony and Ecstasy of Phil Spector. Finally, I noticed this weekend's Austin Film Festival is hosting a screening of a doc called Raging Boll on Saturday, which got this big write-up in the Chronicle. Sounds... interesting. Or better than Hereafter. Your call.