Weekend Box Office preliminary results: “Jackass 3D” kicks ass!

Per TheWrap:

Like planning outlandish homemade stunts, motion-picture tracking is often followed by unanticipated results.

One such anomaly occurred over the weekend, with the third installment of Paramount’s low-budget freak show “Jackass” opening to $50 million, according to studio estimates — about twice what was expected.

If Sunday’s weekend projections hold up, the R-rated “Jackass 3D” will have enjoyed the biggest October opening ever, besting the $48 million start in 2003 for Dimension’s “Scary Movie 3.”

In fact, while hosting exhibitors at Paramount’s suite last week at ShowEast in Orlando, Fla., studio distribution GM Don Harris said that not one of the theater-chain managers thought “Jackass 3D” would even beat the $29 million premiere of 2006’s part-two installment.

“But I always thought it would play bigger,” Harris conceded. “We haven’t seen much of the (‘Jackass’ filmmakers) in while. Plus, the movie plays really well in 3D.”

Summit’s action-comedy ensemble “Red” also had a solid weekend, grossing $22.5 million and narrowly exceeding its own pre-release projections.

Produced by Summit for $58 million, “Red” stars Bruce Willis as a retired black-ops human weapon who gets pulled back into the game. Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren co-star in the film, which got a solid A-minus score from movie customer-satisfaction grader Cinemascore.

Jackass 3D. $50M. Almost twice the projected figure. 

I’m tempted to repeat the refrain, “We’re very near the end of civilization as we know it,” but in all seriousness I’m asking GITS readers: Why did this movie do $50M? Obviously the 3D component helped. But Jackass: The Movie did $64M domestic. Jackass: Number Two did $72M. That’s an upward trend. But even if this third installment plummets 50% next weekend, it’s still going to gross $80M easily, perhaps $90M, significantly higher than the first two movies.

Why did it do so well? Is there something significantly jack-assier about this one than the others?

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