This weekend, it appears that audiences were in the mood to be kinda-sorta-not-really scared at the movies, with The Last Exorcism poised to win the weekend's box office race with a not-terrible $8.5m opening on Friday . If those projections are correct, the mockumentary/horror-film from producer Eli Roth will will have earned back its budget more than ten times over by Sunday. Read on, my gentle Examiner readers...
It would appear that a whole bunch of people went to see The Last Exorcism last night (Comedy Examiner included: it was just kinda "Meh", but you can read more about that here), with the film earning a respectable $8.5m yesterday, a full $1.2m more than the next highest-grossing film, The Takers. If the numbers maintain through Sunday, then Eli Roth's production will rake in a not-inconsiderable $23.5m for the weekend-- good numbers for a film that didn't cost all that much to make.
The mockumentary/horror-film is just the latest in a long line of "real" horror movies that began (for all intents and purposes) with 1999's The Blair Witch Project, continuing up through last year's Paranormal Activity (which made a buttload of cash itself last summer). While the opening figures for The Last Exorcism don't suggest that the film's a hit on the level of either of those films, it can rest assured knowing that it only cost the filmmakers $1.8m to make the film. However, if word of mouth on the film continues to put asses in seats, we may see it become one of the highest gross-to-cost films of the last several years.
In case you missed our video last week showing off some of the viral marketing for The Last Exorcism, check that out below: that might be responsible for some of that massive $23.5m coming in this weekend. Be sure to check out our underwhelmed, official review of the film at this page before buying tickets, and stay tuned for more on the weekend's box office tomorrow, when we'll have a full rundown of the top ten films in release. Here's that trailer, Slappy:
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