‘Puss in Boots’ gets Halloween weekend box office record with $34 million

This Halloween weekend, audiences decided that seeing a cat voiced by Antonio Banderas was better than another horror film. DreamWorks’ Puss in Boots reached the record for the highest grossing film on Halloween weekend ever with $34 million, while Paranormal Activity 3 was not able to build on last weekend’s remarkable debut.

Puss in Boots was a needed success for DreamWorks Animation, whose only other release this year was Kung Fu Panda 2, which did not do as well as the last Shrek film last year. The studio originally planned on releasing it this weekend, but by opening it a week early, they get to take full advantage of the holiday season. "Being the No. 1 movie and the likely Halloween weekend record-breaker, we're well-positioned to go into week two, as well as play through the holidays,” Anne Globe, head of worldwide marketing and consumer products at DreamWorks told The Associated Press.

Still, as Entertainment Weekly points out, the film cost DreamWorks a whopping $130 million to make, meaning that the studio will have to hope that it does as well as Megamind did during Thanksgiving 2010. That film made $148.4 million in total, but had a much better opening weekend with $46 million. It is possible that snow in the northeast took a chunk out of Puss’ debut.

Paranormal Activity 3 fell 65 percent from last week, making just $18.5 million. The film’s total is now up to $81.3 million, but considering it cost Paramount only $5 million to make, no one should be complaining.

Justin Timberlake’s star credentials might have taken a little hit with In Time, which only made $12 million. Still, Fox, which distributed it, was happy with the results for the $35 million film, produced by New Regency, telling The Hollywood Reporter that it reached their pre-release expectations.

However, the news of the weekend is that Johnny Depp’s The Rum Diary flopped, unable to even beat out Footloose for fourth place. Depp tried to drum up support for the film, which is based on a novel by Hunter S. Thompson, by going around to college campuses, but it failed to connect with a mass audience. It only brought in $5 million.

Real Steel continues to make money, coming in sixth with $4.7 million, while The Three Musketeers has also proven to be a flop, bringing in just $3.5 million in its second week of release. The Ides of March had $2.7 million. Moneyball is still playing and pulled in another $2.4 million. In tenth place came Courageous with $1.8 million.