Box office preview: 'Paranormal Activity 2' will attempt to scare its way into first place
10/22/2010 11:07:00 AM
kenmouse
, Posted in
Paramount Pictures will likely be trick-or-treating early this year, as the studio is expected to snag the top two spots at the box office over the weekend with its horror sequel Paranormal Activity 2 and the surprisingly potent Jackass 3D. The original Paranormal Activity is already considered a box-office legend. The 2009 haunted-house flick, which was made for a mere $15,000, built initial buzz by letting moviegoers “demand” local screenings through the film’s website. After four weeks of increasingly sold-out showings, the movie opened wide exactly one year ago and shocked pundits by conquering the weekend with $21.1 million (and simultaneously crushing horror competitor Saw VI). The Paranormal sequel won’t have the same element of surprise this time around, but Paramount has been careful to make sure the film doesn’t follow in the footsteps of, say, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, the 2000 sequel that cumulatively earned $26.4 million compared to The Blair Witch Project‘s $140.5 million. Here are my weekend predictions:
No surprise that Apple's new Mac App Store has a similar set of rules and regulations as the iPhone App Store, and we just got the full list. There's nothing here that's too different from the iPhone review guidelines, but it all seems terribly odd when applied to a regular computer, and some of the more restrictive policies have already drawn ire from developers like Mozilla's Director of Firefox Mike Beltzner, who says the restriction against beta code won't work well with the Mozilla "open beta" development process. That's definitely a valid criticism, especially if the Mac App Store becomes the dominant way for Mac users to get apps, but there's a crucial difference here: unlike the iPhone, Macs can run software from any source, not just the App Store. That means apps that don't meet Apple's Store guidelines can still be freely used by any Mac user without going through jailbreak hoops, and we think that's an ideal compromise: it allows Apple to control much of the Mac experience, since developers will have a huge incentive to comply with the review guidelines and get into the store, but still allows other types of apps and utilities to flourish -- including, say Firefox betas. (We might have written an editorial arguing for exactly this approach on the iPhone in the past, come to think about it.)
For now, what's better for Lindsay Lohan: more jail or more rehab?
As reported previously, Van Ness Wu and Lynn Xiong were filming in Paris for their upcoming drama, “Material Queen”. Van Ness has been trying his best to avoid intimate scenes due to his Christianity, but he and Lynn had a bed scene in the drama. Fortunately, due to the cold weather in Paris, the bed scene was cancelled and changed to a kissing scene instead. Feeling relieved, Van Ness expressed, “Thank God!”
Glee‘s Dianna Agron has taken to tumblr to pen a 500-word response to the controversy surrounding the racy photo shoot she and co-stars Lea Michele and Cory Monteith did for GQ. She writes:
It's no secret that Kristen Stewart has the 'Twilight' films to thank for putting her on the map ... and on posters lining the bedroom walls of teenagers all over the world.
Windows, Microsoft’s ubiquitous operating system, sits firmly in place.
Christina Aguilera is relying on her mother, her son and her closest friends to help her through the emotional turmoil of her divorce from Jordan Bratman.
