Personally, I’ve seen Woman In Black and it was good fun, even though the scariest moments came from the fake-outs, not the actual hauntings themselves. Still, it was well-acted and good fun. No opinion on Chronicle as I haven’t seen it yet.

Both movies took in a hair over $8 million on Friday, with Chronicle showing a very slight lead in the early going.

The film breathed some life into an otherwise flagging post-holiday box office which saw the second-ranked movie, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, grab a mere $19.8 million; however, it’s been out a month now so that’s not bad. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows drew $13.6 million, while Girl With the Dragon Tattoo drew $11.6 million, while the Chipmunks movie added $9.5 million to round out the top five.

Devil Inside was the sole new release of the weekend.

Worse off was the third Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, Chipwrecked. Despite boasting more screen time for Jason Lee, who was barely present in the second installment as Dave Seville, the movie took second place with $23.5 million domestically and $14 million in foreign markets for a total of $37.5 million… again well behind previous installments, both of which drew in the $40+ million range on their opening weekends.

Sensing a pattern here?

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL is another story. The film, budgeted at $140 million, drew only $13.6 million this weekend, but only appeared on a paltry 400+ screens. It boasted the healthiest per-screen average of the weekend, drawing over $30K per screen. And with $68.2 million in foreign receipts already, the film hasn’t yet “gone into wide release” in the US and has already made $81.8 million.

So, it’s doing well.

Nothing else broke the $10 million mark, and only last weekendd’s champ, the multi-star rom-com, New Year’s Eve, even came close with $7.4 million. After that, all other films couldn’t even reach $5 million.

Happy Feet 2 did okay, thought, considering the movie casting its shadow over the weekend. The animated sequel debuted drawing $21.2 million. The much-hyped Immortals took third place with $12 million and change and still hasn’t come close to making its $75 million budget back. Adam Sandler’s JACK AND JILL drew $11 million in fourth place, while PUSS IN BOOTS, a spinoff of SHREK, drew $10 million.

Early indicators are that BREAKING DAWN Part 1 will dominate the long Thanksgiving Day weekend as well.

Paranormal Activity 3, however, did cruise to an easy second place win, taking in $19 million on the weekend and likely a strong Halloween Monday on the way.

From the extreme to the extremely disappointing, SF action flick IN TIME finished just barely around $12 million, well below expectations and what they needed to make their budget back. The folks who put this one together will need to be wearing northface jackets to bear the chilly reception they’ll get at their next pitch meeting. Yikes!

Nothing else came near the $10 million weekend box office threshold.

Also debuting next weekend is the latest redux on The Three Musketeers. The twist this time is that the outsider who wants in is a female Musketeer. Should be swashbuckling fun, for those not looking to be scared.

Finally, while its opening on about half the number of screens as its competitors, Rowan Atkinson’s James Bond spoof, Johnny English Reborn, should be good for laughs, though personally he’s never really topped the work he did a couple decades ago on the Blackadder series, or, for Whovians, the Comic Relief spoof he performed in on DOCTOR WHO, scripted by current WHO showrunner Steven Moffat. That was called DOCTOR WHO: “The Curse of Fatal Death,” for those not in the know.

With three solid choices, viewers ought to be pleased for a change with the choices at the box office. I know I’m going to be in line early for PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3. I have my save the date cards made out, and everything!

A step behind was REAL STEEL, now in its second weekend, which drew $4.5 million on Friday and should be comfortably in the range of $12-$13 million.

On the other end of the remake spectrum is Hollywood’s third version of THE THING, which opened to a weak $3.3 million Friday and seems set to just barely clear over $10 million. That’s disappointing enough that it could have producers reaching for antacid and incontinence products to relieve their discomfort.

Nothing else is looking even close to reaching the $10 million weekend bar. But the final numbers are not in yet.

Footloose is a remake of the mid-1980s hit, and will try to make lightening strike twice without the benefit of Kevin Bacon of Lori Singer. Seems like a longshot to me, but what do I know?

Also coming out this weekend is a remake of The Thing, the third version of that particular flick. The first was a 1951 low-budget deal starring Gunsmoke’s James Arness as The Thing. More recent was John Carpenter’s version, circa 1982. Now, we get the latest version via director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.

I’m not wild about either remake, unless one of them features someone running around in a Marcus nurse uniform. And the likelihood of that is only slightly greater with The Thing, so… yeah, maybe that one.

In its third weekend, Dolphin Tale dropped but still managed $9.1 million. Nothing else was close. The opening bow of October marked the weakest box office weekend in a month. While fall is typically a weak time of year, producers may need some cost-cutting tools if things don’t pick up soon.

Even the three-week box office champion, The Help, finished a distant second place, drawing a mere $8.9 million. Nothing else drew more than about $5.3 million, and most drew considerably less.

It proved to be a terrible weekend to open. Third-place film Warrior drew $5.3 million, but the mean-spirited comedy Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star, starring the offensive Nick Swardson, made only $1.4 million, bad news despite its meager $10 million budget.

Fortunately for Swardson, the horror film Creature did even worse, becoming the poorest-drawing movie ever to debut on 1,500 screens or more; the flick made a mere $327,000, setting new low.

Coming up this weekend are Drive, I Don’t Know How She Does It and Straw Dogs, as well as a 3D re-release of Disney’s classic, The Lion King.

Wouldn’t shock me if Lion King led them all.

The Help was the only film to crack $10 million in the three-day weekend, hitting $14.5 million. That brings its domestic total to $118.9 million. Not bad for a flick that cost just $25 million to make.

The next three spots were taken up by The Debt ($9.9 million), Apollo 18 ($8.7 million… I personally expected better!), and Shark Night 3D ($8.4 million).

This coming weekend isn’t that much more promising. The big-budget thriller Contagion should finally give us a new film atop the charts, but beyond that, there’s nothing I’d want to see. Un-funny comic Nick Swardson’s film debut, Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star, is just another insulting-to-the-handicapped comic-plays-a-man-child flick that is barely funny when producer Adam Sandler is the star. With Swardson onscreen, it’s doomed to be an “I’ll be sure to avoid this” venture.

The other two releases, WARRIOR and CREATURE, have virtually no pub or push behind them, so expectations are through the basement.

One movie that disappointed was Final Destination 5. Despite showing on more than 600 additional screens compared to The Help, the teen-death flick could only scrape up an $18 million debut weekend against a $40 million budget. That’s not back, but about $7 million less than expectations.

Worse off was the dreary comedy, 30 Minutes or Less, which drew only $13.3 million and trailed week three of The Smurfs. Good thing the flick only cost $28 million to make. And count it a mixed bag for the GLEE 3D concert movie; debuting in 11th place with only $5.9 million makes the franchise seem weak on the big screen, but the film only cost $9 million to make, and since it’s no replacement for the live concert tour, or the TV show, it’s all gravy.