T'was the weekend before Halloween and all through these parts, the scariest movies were topping the charts. No, not Saw V. Sure it’s scary and, of course, it made plenty of cash, but there was something even more frightening that did even better.
High School Musical is a terrifying phenomenon that until now had been kept to the realms of Disney TV and direct-to-DVD. However, since Zac Ephron and Vanessa Hudgens are still one-note-players that can’t demand bloated salaries, and the set generally involves a high school gym and theater, the movie came in on the impressively low budget of $11 million. Kids cranked out the cash to the tune of $42 million, the largest debut since The Dark Knight back in July.
Meanwhile the Saw films seem to have settled into a tidy little pattern of profit. Saw V took in $30 million against an $11 million budget. That’s pretty close to the same results for Saw III and Saw IV. Even though the movies are getting arguably worse and worse, they’ve become an institution and will probably get to Saw ILVIII before they find an excuse to stop.
Pride and Glory opened with no reason to be proud and less hope for glory. Despite a solid actor like Edward Norton and a bad boy like Colin Farrell, the movie had no room to compete against the likes of Jigsaw and musical-theatre-obsessed teens.
Clint Eastwood’s latest destined-for-Academy-awards drama, Changeling, opened in just fifteen theaters across the nation and yanked in over half a million dollars. At an impressive $33,000+ per screen it’s a good sign the movie has a solid chance at more than just Oscar gold when it expands to wide release.
