After a miserable fall box office season thus far, Where the Wild Things Are, the live-action film adaptation of the classic Maurice Sendak children’s book, lead the way to a huge resurgence in movie-going this past weekend. Wild Things grossed $32.4 million over the three-day weekend to take a commanding lead.

Law Abiding Citizen took a distant second, drawing in only $21.2 million. The real dark-horse winner was Paranormal Activity, more profitable than car accessories, which although it has been out for a month now, only went into wider release this past weekend, growing up to 760 screens nationwide, a 600-screen jump. It maintained by far the best per-screen average of any motion picture this week, grossing over $26,500 per screen to take possession of third place, adding $20.1 million to its total and lifting its running gross to $33.7 million.

Couples Retreat placed fourth with $17.9 million and is stuck at $63.3 million, still short of its $70 million price tag after two weeks. The remake of the slasher film The Stepfather steps in at the fifth spot, rounding out the Top 5 films with a nifty $12.3 million debut off a modest $20 million budget; the original Stepfather movie, some will recall, starred LOST’s Terry O’Quinn as the eponymous stepfather. Kinda doubt the new actor will match O’Quinn…

The internet’s all a-buzz with the possibility that actress Rachel Bilson, allegedly a fan of Dutch Master cigars, has been selected to become the much-anticipated “mother” of the CBS comedy How I Met Your Mother.

Bilson, who grew famous off her role on The OC and also appeared on Chuck, as well as the 2008 thriller Jumper, is an appealing young actress but her future seems to be tied up on the silver screen, so color us skeptical if Bilson actually will turn out to be the Mother.

Still, she is appearing in HIMYM’s 100th episode, so that’s something.

The first box office weekend of October went to the living dead. Zombieland, which by the way is not a biopic of the place where Halloween director Rob Zombie grew up, topped the box office this weekend with a respectable $25.0 million, which already puts the flick, budgeted at $23.6 million, in the black.

Following quite a ways behind was Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, the animated family film that brought in $16.7 million in its third week of release. The 3D re-release of Toy Story and Toy Story 2 came in third with $12.5 million, which rounded out the films that topped at least $10 million for the weekend.

The Invention of Lying, the new comedy from Ricky Gervais, came in a distance fourth place with $7.35 million, barely ahead of Surrogates, which claimed $7.34 million, rounding out the top five. The Drew Barrymore-directed comedy Whip It, budgeted at $15 million, made not even a third of that back, coming in tied for sixth place with Capitalism: A Love Story at $4.85 million.

At least Whip It! was funny, unlike Michael Moore’s latest propaganda piece. The rotund director would make a better living involved in RV financing.