So much for a slow-pace in these final weeks of summer.  Along with a strong holdover performance from Fox’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes at number one, the box office was crowded with four new releases: one which seriously over-performed (The Help), one which very seriously underperformed (Glee The 3D Concert Movie) and two which fell somewhere in between.

It’s Halloween, and you know what that means! Big rusty traps that split your jaw, crawling naked through broken glass and, of course, the fun of cutting off your own foot. You know. The classics. For the seventh year running a Saw movie has been submitted by Lionsgate for your approval. Through the magic of 3D, the franchise that gave us last year’s anemic Saw VI had a chance to redeem itself. And it kind of delivered.

On Friday we told you that Jackass 3D had secured fall’s single-day debut record with over $21 million and that the sequel seemed destined to become one of the season’s all-time weekend champs with a projection of over $40 million. Turns out that the Jackass boys were destined for bigger things. With an estimated $50 million from 3,081 locations, the third installment in the franchise now holds both the October and the all-time fall weekend record – eclipsing Scary Movie 3’s $48.1 million set in 2003.

With one week to go before we bid farewell to the summer of 2010, three “new” releases arrived to claim their share of those diminishing vacation dollars. The actual new movies fared better than the one “new” movie: that re-released, Special Edition of Avatar. The now extra, crazy-long ‘biggest movie of all time’ earned an estimated $1.2 million from its 811 all-3D engagements (including 125 in IMAX). That was good enough for tenth place on Friday… right behind Nanny McPhee Returns. I guess those extra 8 minutes weren’t a big incentive after all. On the winning end of our top ten, The Last Exorcism led the pack on Friday with an estimated $9.4 million from 2,874 locations – just a bit less than The Final Destination, with its 3D-enhanced ticket prices, earned on the same day in 2009. The heist drama Takers placed second with $7.5 million estimated from 2,206 locations. Screen counts, um, count, in other words. We’ll have full weekend details back here tomorrow.

Eric Heisserer, who wrote the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street and the upcoming prequel for The Thing, has been hired to pen the screenplay for Final Destination 5 (which will be in 3D).  For those who don’t know, all of the Final Destination movies work like so: 1.) Main character has premonition of horrific disaster; 2.) Main character and supporting characters escape horrific disaster; 3.) Death comes to finish off each surviving character in the most elaborate fashion possible; 4.) Profit.  Each film has a modest budget and rakes in about $50 million.  The Final Destination was supposed to be the last one but then it grossed $181 million worldwide and here we are.

Heat Vision says not much is known about the plot (although I think I laid it out right there) but one of the characters will be undergoing laser-eye surgery.  I’m waiting for the Final Destination where Death takes out a character during a vaginoplasty.  New Line is hoping that Heisserer will break up the repetition of the series.  I suppose you could do that by having Death kill people in five seconds rather than five minutes.

After Final Destination 3, the return of David R. Ellis to the director’s chair seemed like a welcome relief for The Final Destination, the fourth entry in the Final Destination franchise. James Wong directed the first and third, but Ellis directed the second, and it took a clever premise and turned what was once a moody dead teenager movie into a gore-comedy franchise. With an expertly directed opening car crash, the second film took special glee in killing its cast off in elaborate ways, and changed the tone into something resembling a comedy. Bobby Campo stars with Shantel VanSanten and Mykelti Williamson as accident survivors trying to beat death’s design in this effort, and the review of The Final Destination is after the jump.

The summer movie season is at an end and, as usual, it is going out with a whimper instead of a bang.  Despite the fact that the studios gave audiences three fresh choices at the multiplex, the film that eked out the best numbers as of Sunday continued to be last weekend’s 3D horror-hit “The Final Destination”… sick of hearing me talk about those “higher ticket prices” yet?  Though only five thousand dollars separated “Destination” and “All About Steve” on Friday, the fact that the Sandra Bullock/Bradley Cooper comedy received some of the worst reviews of the summer (a feat in itself) helped that gap widen as the weekend progressed.  Neither of our other newcomers, “Gamer” and “Extract”, built any real momentum which left “Steve” looking a bit like a hit… standards are a lot lower on Labor Day.

Last weekend I was debating which of Labor Day’s new releases would take the top spot during summer’s big finish: “Gamer” or “All About Steve”.  The four day box-office period is not traditionally a big money maker for the studios which is why films like “Steve” (delayed since last March) and “Gamer” (21% on Rotten Tomatoes) ended up at the ass-end of the summer schedule.  But there was one film I forgot to include in my calculations – “The Final Destination”.  The fourth installment in the nine year-old horror franchise continued to pump its 3D legs on its second Friday – bringing in an estimated $3.58 million from 3,121 venues. The romantic comedy “Steve” was not far behind with $3.55 million so I wouldn’t be surprised if, by Sunday, the Sandra Bullock/Bradley Cooper vehicle pulled ahead.  In truth, not much separates Friday’s top four films so anything could happen.  Check back tomorrow for a box-office update.

It would seem the Weinstein Company is growing antsy in the wake of an under-performing opening weekend for “Halloween II,” Rob Zombie’s latest entry to the rebooted franchise. IMDb reports the slasher has come in with $17.4M thus far, putting it well behind “The Final Destination” and “Inglourious Basterds,” which is in its second weekend. Apparently, this figure is enough to merit a sequel, but not with horror powerhouse Rob Zombie at the helm. More details after the jump.

“The Final Destination” saw a franchise best opening this weekend, earning $28.3 million from 3,121 theatres – 1,678 of those in 3D.  The fourth installment in the teen scream series rode the not-yet tiresome 3D phenom to a first place win over both of The Weinstein Co.’s weekend entries – Rob Zombie’s “Halloween” sequel and Quentin Tarantino’s still dangerous “Inglourious Basterds”.  Meanwhile, Ang Lee’s “Taking Woodstock” went wide-ish this weekend, coming in at number nine with $3.7 million after moving from just two theatres on Wednesday to 1,393 by Friday.

This weekend’s box office race represents that rare instance in the usually well-plotted Hollywood release schedule when two films, aimed at precisely the same target audience, were unveiled on the same Friday.  The calendar-challenged competitors in question were Rob Zombie’s “Halloween II” and WB/New Line’s “The Final Destination”… two horror franchises, two hard-R ratings.  But, on summer’s final Friday, “The Final Destination” got the jump on its rival thanks to those extra-lucrative 3D ticket prices.  It’s not all bad news for the the Weinsteins, however.  “Inglourious Basterds” held better than expected on its second Friday, which means that both of the struggling studio’s current releases may be battling for second place by Sunday.  Check back tomorrow when all final destinations are revealed.

Comic-Con is on like Donkey Kong. After waiting in a massive line full of “Twilight” fans in Burger King hats, and then sitting in Hall-H for an extra hour, things are finally getting started.

Read on for minute-by-minute coverage of Hall-H’s 3D presentations including “A Christmas Carol”, “Alice in Wonderland”, “Tron Legacy”, “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”, “The Hole”, and “The Final Destination”.  Also, please forgive any typos or grammar mistakes as I wrote this train-of-thought and trying to keep pace with the action on stage.  Finally, if you want to read Matt’s thoughts on the Disney 3D Presentation, click here.

And on with the 3D after the jump…

I’m pretty much done with 3D.  It hurts my eyes and it should hurt your eyes because it’s essentially looking at a movie cross-eyed as your eyes attempt to converge an image into a 3D illusion.  And I have yet to see a film where it was worth the eye-ache.  Other folks don’t seem to have a problem watching 3D but I find that even with the best of 3D films (“Beowulf”, “Coraline”), I’m still taking off my glasses and rubbing my eyes every twenty minutes or so.

But even with all my gripes about the technology, I have to see “The Final Destination” in 3D because I visited the set last year and I want to see how it turned out.  Producer Craig Perry was so enthusiastic about how they used 3D in outdoor environments and places where it had never been tried before (like inside a car wash) and so hopefully it will deliver, even if my eyes feel strained watching kids get destroyed.  DVD-Forum.at nabbed some pics of the carnage and, as expected, it looks good.  For a brief synopsis, here: A group of people dodge a catastrophic incident, death comes to find them, bad things happen.  That’s the “Final Destination” formula and I have no problem with it.

Hit the jump to see some images from the film and head over to DVD-Forum.at to see the rest.  “The Final Destination” hits theatres on August 28th.

We’ve just been given the trailer for the upcoming horror flick “The Final Destination”.  Unlike the bland poster, this new trailer does a great job of setting up the inciting event (stock car death!), the gruesome set-ups for ultimate destruction following that inciting event, and then making sure that you know this is all going to be in 3D.  With perhaps the exception of “Avatar”, this is the last film I’m planning to see in 3D and that’s only because I was lucky enough to visit the set last year and I want to see how it all turned out.  Judging from this trailer, I’d say “pretty damn well.”

Check out the trailer after the jump.  “The Final Destination” hits theatres on August 28th.