REMINDER: Sleeper Hit: A sleeper hit, a.k.a. surprise hit (often simply called a “sleeper”), refers to a film, book, single, album, TV show, or video game that gains unexpected success or recognition. — Wikipedia
> Sometimes, a sleeper hit is a low budget movie (or in this case an ‘ultra low-budget’ movie).
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Article:
Paranormal Activity Movie Tops Box Office Hits
Written by Donna Diegel
Exclusive to HULIQ.com
*** Note the bolded words: these are words that we studied! *** 🙂
On its way to becoming the next The Blair Witch Project, and just in time for Halloween, Paranormal Activity, the low-budget horror movie, pushed past Saw VI, and topped the charts for an impressive $62.5 million in ticket sales.
Releasing Paranormal Activity just before Halloween was a stroke of genius on Paramount’s part. Add to that the incredible VIRAL effect the internet, TWITTER in particular, has had on the low-budget horror movie. Twitter is buzzing with “Paranormal Activity”. Twitter’s trending topics has seen Paranormal Activity in its top 10 spots for days. Everyone is excited to see it, and some are waiting until Halloween weekend. Imagine what that will do for ticket sales?
Paranormal Activity is an exception to the rule. When Hollywood is pumping out hundreds of movies that barely make their budget, Oren Peli, an Israeli-born video game designer shot the almost no-budget film in a week, for about $11,000. Peli produced the horror movie with a cast of unknowns, a motley crew of friends and a hand-held video camera. Yet, Paranormal Activity continues to climb the charts, screaming past Saw VI at almost double the ticket sales.
The North American box office has seen its share of Halloween movies scream to the top of the charts in previous years. Since Paranormal Activity’s limited release on September 25, the low-budget horror film reached the #1 spot. With double the theaters showing the movie this past weekend, Paranormal Activity has still managed to bring in another $22 million, bringing the total ticket sales to a whopping $62.5 million. Not bad for an $11,000 investment.
The Los Angles Times says, “Hardly any micro-budget movie ever escapes its creator’s basement, and to travel all the way to the slate of a studio that releases “Star Trek” and “Transformers” — that’s beyond exceptional.”
Now that Paranormal Activity is doing so well, the question is, “Could there be a sequel in this?” “We have the rights on a worldwide basis to do Paranormal 2 and we’re looking to see if that makes some sense,” said Paramount studio chairman Brad Grey. If Paramount can get it together in a hurry, it looks like there may be a second Paranormal coming just in time for Halloween 2010.
Top Box Office Hits for October 23-25
- Paranormal Activity – $22 million
- Saw VI – $14.8 million
- Where the Wild Things Are – $14.4 million
- Law Abiding Citizen – $12.7 million
- Couples Retreat – $11.1 million
Question:
When SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES (such as FACEBOOK, TWITTER, MYSPACE, etc.) engage in creating WORD OF MOUTH VIRAL BUZZ about a topic or a person, do you think that is a MOSTLY POSITIVE activity or is VIRAL BUZZ mostly used NEGATIVELY?
HINT: Think about your own life / experiences: what topics get spread around SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES quickly? Overall, are these topics positive or negative?
PLUS: LINKS for your interest about Paranormal Activity
boxofficemojo.com: Paranormal Activity
Ginger Toes 
We believe that is has a bit or both characteristics in it. Some people could take it as negative but others could take it as positive. We believe it is mostly positive activity.
We believe that it could be used as both positive or negative cause people are entitled to their own opinion. We believe that it is more positivly taken than negative.
In the case of small budget movies it is good for word of mouth to spread these movies so people are more willing to watch movies out of their comfort zone.
There are negative Uses to like gossip and harmfull rumors but hopefully the positive will continue to outway the negative.