Just five days after Halloween it’s beginning to look, um… a bit like Christmas at the box office.  “Disney’s A Christmas Carol” opened in the widest release yet for a 3D feature on Friday: 2,035 screens including 181 in IMAX. Disney also booked a few 2D screens a grand total of 3,683 theatres. So with all that exposure, and those extra-fat 3D ticket prices, it comes as no surprise to find Ebenezer Scrooge on top with an estimated Friday total of $9 million. More of a surprise is the strong second place showing of new entry “The Fourth Kind” with Milla Jovovich. The alien-abduction pic took in just under $5 million after opening in 2,529 theatres. George Clooney and “The Men Who Stare at Goats” came in third with $4.5 million from 2,443 theatres and Richard Kelly’s “The Box” barely edged out the “Paranormal Activity” phenomenon to take fifth place with just under $3 million. Check back tomorrow for details and snarky comments on all of the week’s new releases.

Sony spent a good amount of time on Saturday trying to dial back expectations for their Michael Jackson concert documentary “This Is It”. Perhaps they should have thought of that before they helped set those expectations in the first place? After failing to produce “great numbers” in its first three days in theatres, “This Is It” did manage to notch first place over the weekend with an estimated $21.3 million from its 3,404 domestic engagements. Not bad for a concert movie, but when you consider that recent number one films like “Where the Wild Things Are” and “Zombieland” managed to pull in over $30 million over the same time period, you have to wonder what all that hype was about.

I almost never get to look like a box office sage, but I’m gonna go ahead and pat myself on the back for predicting that the whole Michael Jackson “This Is It” premiere smelled more of hype than of actual box office potential. As Wednesday’s premiere inched closer and the projected totals got higher and higher I felt a pang of doubt - could this movie actually make $250 million worldwide in its first five days as AEG had boasted? I needn’t have worried. In fact, it now looks like even my modest $54 million projection was too high. After bringing in an estimated $7.5 million on Friday “This Is It” seems destined for the $30 million range by the end of its first 5 days - especially with lower than average Saturday figures expected thanks to Halloween’s inconvenient scheduling. “This Is It” will still have enough hype left to carry the weekend, but with “Paranormal Activity” now in more than 2,400 theatres, the gap between the two films will be smaller than Sony would like. Check back tomorrow for full details on the movie thriller that wasn’t.

Spike TV has posted a sort of new trailer Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland”.  Though most of the footage will look familiar to anyone who caught the teaser trailer that Disney released a few months back, new footage is mixed throughout including extended shots of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter that hint at how spectacular the film will look in its Disney Digital 3D and IMAX formats.  Peek down the rabbit hole after the jump.

From the annals of remakes we don’t really care about: Actress Keira Knightley, who has been informally attached to the remake of 1964’s classic musical “My Fair Lady” for nearly two years, is now formally attached along with her “Atonement” director Joe Wright who will helm the project. The coveted role of Eliza Doolittle, made famous in George Cukor’s film by the great Audrey Hepburn, will go to Knightley despite rumors that Scarlett Johansson was being considered for the part by the film’s producers.  Details after the jump.

Friday’s box office results spelled trouble for the once mighty “Saw” franchise in the form of Paramount’s upstart horror pick-up “Paranormal Activity”. Luckily for film fans, Saturday’s attendance rates could offer no quarter to the fearsome Jigsaw killer who finished outside of first place for the first time since the original “Saw” debuted back in 2004. Playing in about 1,000 fewer venues, “Paranormal” didn’t just manage to keep its lead throughout the three day frame, its solid performance also kept those “Saw VI” numbers down to about half of what the film’s predecessors averaged from 2005 to 2008.

“Paranormal Activity” continued its impressive run on Friday as the horror phenom managed to wrestle first place away from the “Saw” franchise for the first time in four years. “Saw VI” could only scare up an estimated $7 million from its 3,036 venues which means that any hope of another $30 million weekend for the Lionsgate series is now lost. So sad. “Paranormal” went from 760 screens last weekend to just shy of 2,000 on Friday, earning another $7.6 million in the process. The pre-holiday week was not nearly as kind to Friday’s also-rans. Relativity/Universal’s “Cirque de Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant” fell short of the top five with $2.2 million, proving that sticking ‘vampire’ in the title is not enough to lure “Twilight” fans away from the coming of “New Moon”. The news was even worse for Summit/Imagi’s “Astro Boy” which could only manage a $1.8 million debut from over 3,000 screens.  Last weekend’s top earner, “Where the Wild Things Are”, fell a disappointing 64% to third place while Fox Searchlight’s “Amelia”, on 818 screens, fell off the radar altogether. Check back tomorrow for complete details and the final three day estimates.

You probably knew that the massive success of “Twilight” last November led Summit Entertainment to quickly secure the rights to all four books in Stephanie Meyer’s series.  You probably also knew that the studio went to great lengths to get the first three films in front of cameras before the franchise could lose any of its hysterical momentum.  But there’s fast and then there’s really fast.  Before Summit has even officially greenlit Meyer’s fourth and final novel, “Breaking Dawn”, a casting website has already posted info on how actors can secure a role in “Breaking Dawn”.  Details after the jump.

UPDATE: Summit is telling us the story isn’t true. Hit the jump to read the original report.

Director Bryan Singer has gone on the record about his desire to return to his most lucrative franchise - Fox’s “X-Men” series.  The director of both “X-Men” and “X2: X-Men United” told reporters in South Korea this weekend that he’s been “talking to Fox” about returning to the director’s chair for his third mutant movie.  Details after the jump.

This could be a first.  Just weeks after winning an Emmy Award for her work on AMC’s “Mad Men”, writer Kater Gordon has been fired from the series.  Gordon shared her award with “Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner for season two’s finale “Meditations in an Emergency”, one of the four episodes from the series that were nominated this year.  More after the jump.

Despite overwhelmingly negative reviews, audiences came out in force to see Vince Vaughn, Kristin Bell and Jon Favreau frolic on the beach in “Couples Retreat” this weekend.  The PG-13 comedy bested Universal’s highest hopes by bringing in over $35 million in its first three days.  But despite all that cash, “Couples Retreat” is not this weekend’s big box office story.  That honor goes to the independent horror movie “Paranormal Activity” - the spiritual beneficiary of the shaky hand-cam and savvy marketing plan that “Blair Witch” built.

This is why Vince Vaughn is known as box office gold.  A typical Vaughn comedy has a reasonable price tag and reaps big returns… if not always big laughs.  The actor made the new bosses over at Universal very happy on Friday as “Couples Retreat” opened to over $12.3 million from 3,000 screens.  It didn’t hurt that the PG-13 comedy was the only wide release of the week, of course.  Meanwhile, Sony is still feeling the love with “Zombieland” at number two and their 3D toon-that-could, “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs”, losing little monetary momentum at number three.  But the real momentum this week belongs to Paramount.  The studio’s indie horror pick-up “Paranormal Activity” moved from midnight-only screenings in a handful of cities to 159 venues (at all hours) on Friday.  With marketing being handled mainly by fans and social networkers, the studio can just sit back and count the cash as it rolls in.  Already the $11,000 pic has earned $3.7 million total.  Check back tomorrow to see exactly how much word-of-mouth will be worth this time.

“Zombieland” is already a financial hit for Sony.  After opening up a big lead on Friday, Ruben Fleischer’s $24 million directorial debut continued to dominate a crowded weekend session, closing Sunday with an estimated $25 million from 3,036 engagements.  And because, lately, the box office has room for only one hit per weekend, new releases like Drew Barrymore’s “Whip It” suffered by comparison.

October is off to a strong start for at least one studio. Sony saw “Zombieland” take number one on Friday with a $9.4 million debut in 3,036 theatres. The horror/comedy hybrid knocked another Sony release, “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs”, into second place after two weeks at number one. In other 3D news, the debut of Pixar’s “Toy Story 1 & 2″ was not far behind “Meatballs” with $3.2 million. Disney’s double bill should take a bite out of Sony’s weekend-matinee monopoly but, playing in only 1,745 locations, it may be hard for the retooled toys to catch up.  Sony was not the only studio that had something to smile about on Friday. Warner Brothers’ new comedy “The Invention of Lying” surprised even the studio by coming in fourth with a $2.5 million debut in 1,707 theatres.  Fox Searchlight’s “Whip It”, playing in the same number of venues, was also a surprise.  The Drew Barrymore/Ellen Page vehicle fell short of the top five despite those ’sneak peaks’ the studio hosted last Saturday.  Check back tomorrow for full weekend box office results.

Despite mounting an early and aggressive advertising campaign for their high-concept sci-fi thriller “Surrogates”, Disney could not catch up to Sony’s holdover hit “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” in time to claim the number one spot on the charts.  After opening up a small lead on Friday, the 3D animated toon finished with another $24 million on its second weekend, making it easily the most-successful release of the month at $60 million in total.  September had more bad news for its new releases as both MGM’s reboot of “Fame” and Overture’s sci-fi horror flick “Pandorum” struggled to find their footing.  Ha! Get it?  The dancers of “Fame” couldn’t find their footing!  More witty bon mots after the jump.

After dodging the law for 31 years, legendary director Roman Polanski was arrested in Zurich, Switzerland on Saturday.  His arrest stems from a 1977 charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.  Polanski pled guilty to a single charge in the case back in 1977, but ended up fleeing the United States before he could be sentenced.  The warrant, served by Swiss authorities as Polanski entered the country, was issued by LA County officials back in 1978.  More after the jump.