Two movies opened on Friday but there was really only one game in town: Paranormal Activity 4. Since 2009, the low-cost horror franchise has ruled late October with its increasingly impressive openings. That tradition hit a speed bump this weekend with PA 4’s estimated $30.2 million debut from 3,412 locations. That falls short of PA 2 and 3 and is also off from the scaled-back projections that followed the film’s Friday opening.

After taking in $4.5 million from its Thursday late shows and midnight screening, Paranormal Activity 4 easily captured first place on Friday with an estimated $15 million. That puts the film on track for about $34 million by Sunday – an impressive figure that, nonetheless, falls short of most projections for the four year-old franchise. Twelve months ago, Paranormal Activity 3 earned $26.3 million on its first day, on its way to an all-time October opening record of $52.5 million. And while few expected PA 4 to come close to that total, the latest entry in Paramount’s crazy-profitable horror franchise should have had no trouble reaching the $40 million mark. Then again, because PA 4 is expected to earn twelve times its budget in worldwide grosses by Sunday, the word ‘disappointment’ does not exactly leap to mind. That word might better apply to this weekend’s second new release, Alex Cross. The thriller, starring Tyler Perry as author James Patterson’s popular crime solver, earned an estimated $4 million from 2,539 runs on Friday. That puts Alex Cross on track for a weekend in the $13 million range: well below the $20 million openings that Perry (as star AND director) has grown accustomed to.  Full details tomorrow.

It’s a weekend box office worth celebrating, with grosses up more than 50% from 2011. That success was almost entirely due to Taken 2, which delivered an estimated $50 million from 3,661 runs for one of the highest October debuts of all time. On the other end of the spectrum, Disney’s Frankenweenie failed to impress; opening in fifth place with an estimated $11.5 million from 3,005 runs despite weeks of heavy promotion.

October’s box office got off to an impressive start on Friday with the launch of Taken 2. More than three years after Liam Neeson and his “very particular set of skills” captivated audiences in Taken, the sequel took in an estimated $18.6 million from 3,661 locations on its opening day. That puts Taken 2 on track for a $50 million first weekend – more than double what its predecessor realized in its debut and just shy of the all-time October opening record set last year by Paranormal Activity 3. After setting a new record for a September opening last weekend, Hotel Transylvania remained a force on Friday with its second-place estimate of $6.5 million. Unfortunately, that was not good news for Disney’s Frankenweenie. With its similar theme and target audience, the stop-motion animated film from director Tim Burton fell short of Hotel Transylvania: earning an estimated $3.3 million from its 3,005 locations towards what should be a $12 million opening frame. We’ll have full details tomorrow.

Sometimes, a spookhouse is just a spookhouse. Creators of those Halloween haunted houses that spring up every year sometimes try to attach a story or characters to them, but that’s not the purpose of their existence. They’re here to give us some old-fashioned jolts: the kind that come when a guy in a mask leaps out of the shadows shrieking like a loon. We jump, we cry out, and we giggle at the relived realization that nothing bad actually happened. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The Paranormal Activity movies exist as unfiltered embodiments of that ethos. Just as certain comedies can be gauged solely on how often they make us laugh, so too does this found-footage horror series live and die by the amount of popcorn flung reflexively in the air. The first film raised that equation to near-art. The second tried to regurgitate rather than recreate and suffered accordingly. Now comes Paranormal Activity 3, a film that more or less rights the ship even as it extends the dubious premise of ongoing (and unnecessary) sequels. Hit the jump for my full review.

There is a lot Paranormal Activity grand maestro Oren Peli won’t talk about. He won’t talk about his long delayed Area 51. He won’t talk about any hypothetical projects or anyone he wants to work with in the future. He won’t give any specifics on his new TV series, The River. And he professes that he has no idea what Paranormal Activity 4 will look like. With this in mind, it is no great shock to announce that a recent afternoon tea with Peli, as well as Christopher Nicholas Smith, Chloe Csengery and Jessica Tyler Brown (all of Paranormal Activity 3) and Micah Sloat and Katie Featherston (stars of the original film) revealed no great secrets about the franchise’s future. Rather, much like the films themselves, it was an afternoon of looking back and filling in the holes and unanswered questions about what came before.

The players told us about the difficulty of faking amateur camerawork, why Steven Spielberg turned off the original film halfway through, how the production allows for scene ideas from literally everyone, where the original concept for Paranormal Activity 2 came from and much, much more. Read on for the top 20 things to know about our afternoon tea with the cast and crew of Paranormal Activity.

There’s not a moment to waste in churning out another Paranormal Activity movie.  Who knows when you’ll be able to find a free Saturday afternoon to make it?  Yesterday, we reported that Paramount would release Paranormal Activity 4 on October 19th.  Today, Bloody Disgusting reports that the studio has re-hired Paranormal Activity 3 directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman to helm the next installment of Ghosts n’ Camcorders.  PA3 had the highest worldwide gross of the trilogy ($203 million) and came $4 million short of topping the original’s domestic box office take of $107 million.  All of these movies cost the spare change found in the producers’ sofas.

Jack and Jill gained some ground on Saturday, though not enough to slay the Immortals.  The 3D action/fantasy film finished first with an estimated $32 million from 3,112 locations. Considering that the film’s distributor was expecting a top opening of $26 million that has to be seen as a win.  And even if the film’s total does look somewhat anemic compared to past 3D hits, with the year we’ve had I’d prefer to focus on the positive.

Dreamworks Animation’s Puss in Boots was poised to have a killer weekend, but Snowtober had other plans. The 3D Shrek spinoff still claimed the top spot with $34 million, but a freak snowstorm in the Northeast and Halloween weekend led to this weekend being fairly soft overall. Despite all the snow, Puss still managed to earn the record for Halloween weekend, narrowly beating out 2006’s Saw III which took in $33.6 million. The sci-fi actioner In Time opened to an as expected $12 million, while the weekend’s other wide release The Rum Diary made a mere $5 million. Hit the jump for more. [Update: The post has been updated with analysis on the full top ten.]

No surprises here, Dreamworks Puss in Boots took the top spot at Friday’s box office with an estimated $9.6 million from 3,952 locations.  The spinoff to Shrek – the most profitable animated franchise of all time – is poised to take in $35 million by Sunday: enough to give the 3D title the new Halloween-weekend record.  That means that, after breaking its own records last weekend, the holiday’s only scary movie, Paranormal Activity 3, will fall to second place.  Sci-fi newcomer In Time took third on Friday with an estimated $4.3 million and is expected to top out in the low teens for the weekend.  Meanwhile, The Rum Diary debuted in what looks like fourth place with $1.8 million from 2,272 locations.  The film had to share that estimate with Footloose, but is expected to come in slightly higher by Sunday with a weekend total of $7 million.  Details and analysis tomorrow.

What better time is there to see a scary movie than Halloween weekend? And what better horror franchise to relive than Paranormal Activity? For the price of admission to see Paranormal Activity 3, the current installment in theaters, you can see all three films in their chronological order. (That’s 3,1,2 for those of you who are confused as me.)

The franchise has dulled the blades of SAW in recent years, topping the October box office with each new installment. Now, Paramount Pictures and Regal Cinemas are bringing the whole Paranormal Activity family back to the screen in select cities. Hit the jump to see if the found-footage phenomenon is in your town this weekend.

Earlier this week, it seemed like Paranormal Activity 3 was looking at an opening weekend in the $35-$40 million range, or just slightly less than what its predecessor took in on this week last year.  Instead, the three-quel has crushed all projections with an estimated take of $54 million from 3,321 locations.  At this point that stands as the highest October debut and the biggest supernatural horror opening of all-time, unseating 2010’s Paranormal Activity 2, of course.

No shocks here.  After earning a franchise-best $8 million from its 2,200 midnight debuts, Paranormal Activity 3 went on to lead Friday with an estimated $26.2 million from 3,321 locations.  That marks another high for the three year-old franchise.  On its first Friday last year Paranormal Activity 2 took in $20.1 million and, by the law of diminishing returns, most box office watchers expected PA3 to chart a bit below its predecessor.  That may have proved true if recent frames had featured a breakout hit capable of siphoning off attendance from this new release, but that didn’t happen.  Instead, Paranormal 3 is expected to reach $50 million by Sunday: another franchise high.  With one movie dominating, the weekend’s other major new release – The Three Musketeers – is suffering.  After a disappointing Friday launch of $2.9 million from 3,017 locations the film is on its way to a weekend in the low double digits.  Finally, low-budget Johnny English Reborn (anyone recall him being born in the first place?) placed eighth on Friday with $1.1 million from 1,551 locations.  The fact that the film’s international gross is already nearing $100 million should soften that blow, however.  Details and analysis tomorrow.

A new trailer for Paranormal Activity 3 has been released, and it looks as though all hell breaks loose. The third entry in the franchise is a prequel to the first two films, and attempts to connect everything together as it shows protagonist Katie’s younger years. This trailer seems to reveal a good chunk of the movie to audiences, and the gags seem much more overt and fake than the sinister and understated ones of the first film. It also looks like a lot of this film takes place during the daytime, which is not scary because everyone knows that creepy things only throw people around at nighttime.

Additionally, Paramount is trying to recapture the “demand the film” craze that made the first film such a big hit in theaters. This time, the film will open in 20 cities on October 18^th, three days before it opens nationwide. The winning cities will be chosen by the 20 cities that have the most tweets. Hit the jump to watch the trailer and for more details on the “Tweet to See It First” campaign. Paranormal Activity 3 opens everywhere October 21st.

New posters have gone online for the low-budget horror sequel Paranormal Activity 3 and the indie flick Dirty Girl.  The Paranormal Activity posters continue to be terrible as the studio just takes a shot from the film, puts it on a black background, and slaps on a title.  Oh, but this one has the taglines “Discover how the activity began,” (answer: with a brilliant marketing campaign), and “It runs in the family,” which only means something if you’ve seen the previous two films.  But I suppose people know at this point whether they’re on board with this franchise or not.

There’s also a new poster for Dirty Girl.  The film was picked up by The Weinstein Company at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival but has reportedly been re-edited for the theatrical release.  Dirty Girl stars Juno Temple as a girl who runs away with her classmate (Jeremy Dozier) who runs away to Los Angeles to find her biological father.  Hit the jump to check out both posters.  Paranormal Activity opens October 21st.  Dirty Girl opens October 7th.