Well, my prediction was wrong.  Apparently, SAW fans have either grown tired with the franchise after five sequels, or they got caught up in the hype surrounding PARANORMAL ACTIVITY.  SAW VI suffered one of the worst openings in the series, with about $14 million, as PARANORMAL brought in $22 million, according to the IMDB.  The two movies were separated by only about 1/2 million dollars on Friday, but as the weekened went on, the gap grew.  I'm not sure what to make of this, to be honest.  My guess would be it's a combination of diminishing returns on a franchise and a large number of fans, including non-genre fans, running out to see the hot new thing they keep hearing about. 

Any way you look at it, it was a huge weekend for horror at the box office.  Our genre occupied the top two slots with a comibined $36 million dollars, and spots 7, 8 and 10 were also horror fare.  Granted, this isn't exactly surprising considering it was a week before Halloween, but it's encouraging for genre fans.

--Phil Fasso