In a quiet weekend for new releases at the US box office, Couples Retreat has stormed out of the gates to take $35 million in its first three days. It’s a fantastic opening for a film that was almost universally panned by the major critics.
Despite this, Americans were keen to find out what happens when Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman, Jon Favreau, Krisen Bell, Malin Akerman and co. head off for a holiday, only to realise they have to have couple’s therapy, whether there’s a problem in their relationship or not.
Although Couples Retreat was the only film released this weekend that hit the top 10, it wasn’t the only film making its first appearace on the chart. Paranormal Activity, which opened on around 30 screens last weekend and made it to number 20 on the chart, expanded to 159 screens, and took over $7 million this weekend for a fifth place finish. That’s an incredible $44,000 a screen, four times as much as any other movie in the top 10.
It’s a massive result for a film that nearly didn’t get released at all, and was only bought by Paramount so they could remake it. It should also bolster the studio’s plans to expand the film to a wider release over the next few weeks. They said they’d do it if a million people signed up on the Paranormal Activity website, but with box office results like these, there’s no doubt they’d have done it anyway. With its smart marketing capaign, the mockumentary could end up a hit on a par with its fellow ‘found footage’ thriller, The Blair Witch Project.
Take a look below for the full US box office Top 10 for the weekend of October 9th-11th, 2009.
| Rank | Title | Weekend Gross (millions) | Total Gross to date (millions) |
| 1 | Couples Retreat | $35.3 | $35,3 |
| 2 | Zombieland | $15 | $47,8 |
| 3 | Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs | $12.0 | $96.2 |
| 4 | Toy Story/Toy Story 2 3D | $7.6 | $22.6 |
| 5 | Paranormal Activity | $7.0 | $8.2 |
| 6 | Surrogates | $4.1 | $32.5 |
| 7 | The Invention Of Lying | $3.3 | $12.3 |
| 8 | Whip It | $2.8 | $8.7 |
| 9 | Capitalism: A Love Story | $2.7 | $9.0 |
| 10 | Fame (2009) | $2.5 | $20.0 |