Apparently the movie going audience hasn’t yet tired of the “found footage” horror film genre as the third film in the Paranormal Activity series set records for an October opening.

Paranormal Activity 3 scared up $54 million in its opening weekend to set a record for the biggest opening ever for October and the largest premiere for the series.  However, not all was rosy as nearly 49% of that came in on Friday, but considering the film only cost $5 million to make, it’s highly doubtful anyone is going to be horribly upset about how the money came in.

Coming in second was Real Steel with a 30.5% decline to $11.3 million.  That brings its domestic total to $67.2 million, but with no data released yet on its budget it’s difficult to judge how it’s doing.

Third place saw Footloose slide a respectable 30.3% in its second weekend to bring in $10.85 million. It’s not exactly burning up the box office, but it is holding its own for sure.

Swasbuckling its way into a disappointing fourth place opening, the 318th version of The Three Musketeers brought in a disappointing $8.8 million. It’s doubtful this is the amount the studio was hoping for in its opening weekend.

The Ides of March fell to fifth place to bring in $4.9 million.

Opening next week will In Time, Puss in Boots, The Rum Diary and Anonymous.

I Don’t Know How She Does It? $8,000 this weekend bringing its domestic total to $9.594 million off a $24 million budget. Here’s a funny moment for you, Captain America, which was released in July and comes out on home video this week, brought in another $165,000.

Hitting theaters on May 4, 2012, The Avengers is one the most eagerly anticipated comic book films of all time. So, why not start the marketing campaign now?

The first trailer for The Avengers was just released, and while it doesn’t give away everything we’ll see – rumors still persist the Skrulls are involved – it certainly gives us a lot to look forward to.  Besides seeing Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Bruce Banner/The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) all together, it’s nice to see that Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) will be doing more than just walking around saying cryptic things.

And, yes, that is indeed Loki (Tom Hiddleston) from the Thor film in there as well.

Considering how long Marvel has taken to work up to this film with numerous movies building the mythos, here’s hoping it pays off large.  Plus, on a personal level, I would love to see director Joss Whedon just blow everyone out of the water with the work he does on this.

Filming on The Avengers continues on the streets of Cleveland, doubling for New York City, and while the other day it was just shots of Chris Evans, but this time Chris Hemsworth joins in the fun as Thor.

While this is sure to be that much more exciting once it hits the big screen, seeing such iconic Marvel characters team-up like this is thrilling no matter what the quality of the video is.  Sure, we’ve seen films like The X-Men before, but we’ve never seen a comic book team movie that was crafted in such a way that it multiple movies come before it to prep the audiences for the back-story of each character.  You have to tip your hat just a little to the way the comic book company has gone about shaping this to make sure they can deliver the most interesting team movie yet.

Enough with the talk, lets take a look at some action.

Thor and Captain America team-up to fight those guys in the motion capture suits from the other day. I’m still fairly sure they are supposed to be the Skrulls.

Click the jump for more videos and pictures.

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While The Dark Knight Rises has taken over the streets of Pittsburgh to stand in as the mythical Gotham City, and has hence leaked out a ton of photos and videos, now the same is happening with The Avengers.  Filming in Cleveland, which is standing in for New York City, Chris Evans, spent the day yesterday in his Captain America costume, fighting … something/someone.

Here’s one picture and video, and then you’ll just have to follow after the jump.

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Despite it being ten years since there was anything for the Planet of the Apes franchise, Rise of the Planet of the Apes took the top spot at the box office this weekend.

The original Planet of the Apes series ended in 1973, and the remake was released in 2001, so my feelings were that a prequel of sorts to a series most of today’s movie audience wasn’t that familiar with wouldn’t do well, but yet Rise of the Planet of the Apes brought in a healthy $54 million this weekend. Where this fits into the overall Apes mythos is odd in that is envisioned to be an origin story of sorts to the original 1968 film, it contradicts the fourth film, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, that told of the rise of Ceaser. Seeing how the film did this weekend, I wouldn’t be shocked to see a whole new series launch out of this film. (Here ends my nerdy knowledge of the Planet of the Apes series.)

Coming in second was The Smurfs with a respectable 41% fall off in business from its opening to weekend to land with $21 million. Seeing as an average second weekend fall is 50%, this film is performing surprisingly well.

Not performing as well was last weeks top spot holder, Cowboys & Aliens which fell 56.8% to $15.7 million. The concept was unique for sure, but it appears that film goers were not all that interested in this concept.

The Change-Up opened up in fourth place with $15.7 million. Perhaps it is time for Hollywood to realize that people are bored with body swap stories, but it’s doubtful that will stop them from going back to this forumla time and time again.

Wrapping up the top five was Captain America: The First Avenger with $13 million in its third weekend.

Next week is a busy one with The Help opening on Wednesday and 30 Minutes or Less, Final Destination 5 and Glee The 3D Concert Movie hitting on the weekend.

Green Lantern?  Out of the theaters completely.  No more train wreck for us.

In what is sure to turn in to a day long battle of pennies, two films tied for the top box office spot this weekend: Cowboys & Aliens and The Smurfs.

One thing to remember with these top box office reports each week is they are based off of estimates until much later in the day on Monday.  The projections are usually fairly accurate, but when you have two films tie for the top spot, you end up with a day long battle of furious accounting to figure out which one actually came out on top.

Cowboys & Aliens and The Smurfs are both initially reporting box office receipts of $36.2 million.  No matter what, the former was expecting a bigger weekend more in the range of $45 million, but the latter actually came in a bit ahead.

Captain America: The First Avenger took a 62 percent hit, falling to $24.9 million.  This keeps it ahead of Thor, but not by much.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 2 came in fourth, falling another 54 percent to $21.9 million. It became the top grossing film in the series on Friday, and has also passed $1 billion globally, but it is running behind based on attendance. This has got to become the leading metric someday for the business side of things over the finances.

Coming in in firth place was the romantic comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love which brought in $19.3 million.

Green Lantern? 26th place with $166,000 for a new domestic total of $114.3 million. For a fun comparison, Thor came out more than a month earlier and was in 23rd place with $203,000.

Next week sees the release of The Change-Up and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I know next to nothing about the first one, but I really have no clue how the prequel to the Planet of the Apes will do. It seems like a really odd pull at this point.

UPDATE: Cowboys & Aliens brought in $36.4 million to The Smurfs $35.6.  

Adding to Green Lantern’s shame, Rio – an animated move released in April and coming out on DVD tomorrow – played in more theaters and brought in $560 more.

With 10 months to go, Marvel is wasting no time getting us all worked up for the upcoming film of The Avengers.  Considering the amount of time and money the company has put into prepping for this film, it shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Released over the course of the San Diego Comic-Con was a series of seven character posters that would finally form one large image that showed you some of the history of each character as well as hints of what we’ll see in the new film.  (Is that a Helicarrier I see behind Hawkeye and the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents?)

• Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow
• Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man
• Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk
• Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America
• Chris Hemsworth as Thor
• Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye
• Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk
• Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury
• Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson (S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent)
• Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill (S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent)

While I normally don’t care for films with too many characters in them, especially in the comic book genre, but the only new introductions out of all those characters I listed that are new to the series are Cobie Smulders of How I Met Your Mother as S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Maria Hill and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye.  (Yes, Hawkeye appeared in Thor for a sum total of an eye blink, I don’t count it.)  If Marvel was going to try to introduce each character in this film I would go out of mind, but seeing as the characters have had their own films to prepare for this particular project, this concept works fine for me.

May 2012 can’t get here fast enough for me.

Knocking the boy wizard from the top box office spot, Captain America: The First Avenger planted his flag at the top of the mountain.

Captain America took the top box office spot this weekend with $65.8 million, beating the last Marvel movie, Thor, by a mere $100,000 for a weekend total.  The latter went on to a domestic gross total of $180 million, so it looks like this film will go on to a similar total.  This is the last of the films from the company leading up to its team film, The Avengers debuting next May.

The big news this week, however, was the 72 percent decline that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 2, the largest fall ever for a film that set an opening weekend record. It still brought in $48 million, and it is doubtful that Warner Brothers is to up set as it’s nine day worldwide total sits at $834.5 million.  How will they ever make payroll next week with so little income coming in?

Friends With Benefits came in third with a rather anemic $18.5 million, below the similarly themed No Strings Attached that came out this past winter and opened with $19.7 million. There are probably some nerves around this film now as it opened so low and had a $35 million dollar budget. Using the usual math the film needs to hit $70 million domestic to break even, and that seems a pretty tall order now.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon slipped to fourth place with an estimated $12 million. It’s domestic total now sits at $325 million and a worldwide total of $882.3 million.

Coming in fifth was Horrible Bosses with $11.7 million, bringing its domestic total to $82.4 million off of a $35 million budget.

And since I love a train wreck, where was Green Lantern? 18th place with $390,000 for a new domestic total of $113.9 million. Worldwide it’s now at $147.2 million off of a production budget of $200 million. And yet they say there will be a sequel? Well, okay then.

Next week sees Cowboys & Aliens, Crazy, Stupid, Love and The Smurfs.

The Avengers movie is still a little over a year away, but a promo poster at the Licensing Expo in Las Vegas gives us a taste of what we’re in for.

You have to give Marvel credit, they’ve now literally spent years prepping for this movie.  Each of the films produced by the studio have been giving us little tidbits so that the team film can just jump into the action without having to do a lot of backstory.  Since the first Iron Man movie there have been hints to this project, and now it’s all coming together.  The promo poster that was spotted at the Expo shows off Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow and the yet-to-appear Hawkeye (the guy with the bow and arrow).  And, yes, all of the actors from the various films are reprising their roles, so not only will get the ultimate team movie, but it will be star-studded as well.

Big bonus to this poster?  The first look at the “modern” Captain America costume that differs from what we’ll see in his movie next month.

This poster alone is enough to get me excited.  Who ever thought we’d really see all these characters in one movie some day?  Add in Joss Whedon directing and I’m so there.

[via ComingSoon and an IM from Jon Rettinger]

Hugo Weaving has finally had his Red Skull look in the Captain America movie fully revealed, and it’s better than we could have hoped for.

I’ve never been the biggest fan of Captain America, and the movie was looking a tad bit cheezy to me.  It was just something about his costume that wasn’t speaking to me, but I knew the big missing factor was what the final look would be for his arch-enemy, the Red Skull.  Luckily Entertainment Weekly has finally released a final photo, and … not bad.

I’m still not convinced this movie is going to rock my socks off, but at least I have a bit more hope now.

(UPDATE 3/4/11: Clicking on the image will now take you to a larger, high resolution version of the image.  Thanks, Jon!)

Captain America: The First Avenger is currently busy filming in England, and while not much is known yet about the plot except that part of it takes place in the 1940′s and then catches up to modern times by the end.

With all that said, the title character’s costume has been kept under wraps, but when filming on-location, it’s a bit tougher to keep things hidden.  The Daily Mail snapped some photos not only of Cap, but also some major hints as to what is going on with the bad guys.

While we’ve known for some time the movie would feature the Red Skull, it also looks like the enemy organization called HYDRA will be playing a part.  If you look on the sides of the motorcycles, and at the hood ornament of the car you can clearly make out the logo for the group.

Click “Continue Reading” for the pictures and commentary.

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The movie news pouring out of San Diego Comic Con almost makes you forget this used to be a comic book convention.  With more movies based on comic books coming out than ever before, it figures that big announcements are made at this show, and they just keep coming.

(click any of the images for full-sized views)

Green Lantern

Sadly nothing was released after this panel other than the official movie logo.  There was some footage shown, but not to the general public to see, sadly.  Apparently it was pretty quick, showed the ring forming a giant fist to hit some criminals and so on.

Two great bits of news:

1. The costume we saw is not the final one we’ll see on screen, there is more refining to be done to it, and the black will stand out more.
2. A kid in the audience asked Ryan Reynolds to recite Hal Jordan’s oath … everyone reported that no words had been changed.  I am now much more at ease with the film.

There were other tidbits, but we’ll see how this film turns out.

Cowboys & Aliens

I have never read the comic this is based on, but the premise is pretty easy to grasp since it’s right in the title … aliens … in the old West.

It stars Daniel Craig as a mysterious stranger who arrives in town with an odd wrist band, and when alien ships arrive to shoot the town up, he shoots one of their ships down with his device.  Wackiness ensues from there.

It also stars Olivia Wilde as a saloon girl, Harrison Ford as … someone, he’s rumored to be a bad guy.  It’s also directed by Jon Favreau who has directed the two Iron Man movies.  He’s definitely shown he is capable of directing action, and it should prove to be an interesting movie.

I love the concept of this.  There won’t be any going to the mothership and using a Mac to install a virus malarkey.  We’ll have to see how this mysterious wrist weapon works into it, but sign me up as being highly interested.

The Avengers

Yes, more news on The Avengers, but it’s because Marvel had the bright idea to bring the whole cast together on stage and become the talk of the con.

From left-to-right

• Robert Downey Jr. – Tony Stark/Iron Man
• Clark Gregg – Agent Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Scarlett Johansson – Black Widow
• Chris Hemsworth – Thor
• Chris Evans – Captain America
• Samuel L. Jackson – Nick Fury
• Jeremy Renner – Hawkeye
• Mark Ruffalo – Bruce Banner/Hulk
• Joss Whedon – Co-Writer/Director
• Kevin Feige – Marvel Studios’ President

The only two thins we learned from this was the re-casting of Bruce Banner, and we didn’t know for sure the Black Widow would be in the movie.  Even not in costumes, this line-up looks amazing … I can not wait for May 4, 2012.  The only thing missing is someone really should have yelled, “AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!”

Side note from the Marvel panel … The Punisher film rights now belong to Marvel again … can we please finally get a good Punisher movie now?