The real story from the box office this weekend is the non-story of This Is It. Sure, it won the weekend with $21.3 million, but there were some crazy estimates thrown around last week. I know I wasn’t the only person entertaining the notion that this movie would open above $70 million, especially after seeing all the hysterics from frenzied fans on opening day and sold out venues.

So, I have been scratching my head trying to figure out why the movie was a relative dud here in the U.S. Worldwide, it was a smashing success and made over $100 million. Although, I heard more than one estimate say that it could open in the $200-250 million range, and it made less than half that.

Do you think that because Michael Jackson lived here in the States, and we were exposed to more of the controversial aspects of his life? Perhaps fans in Japan, Germany and Australia had a more pristine memory of the King of Pop. At any rate, I was pretty blown away by the movie’s fairly low numbers. This was supposed to be one of the biggest events of the year.

Paranormal Activity enjoyed Halloween weekend, and took in another $16.5 million. It only dropped 22% from last weekend. It stands at a cumulative total of $84.8 million and is all but guaranteed to pass $100 million during its domestic run.

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This week on The Flickcast, Chris and Matt jump in after a week off with a whole bunch of new topics including the new Doc Savage movie, written and directed by Shane Black, the performance of Paranormal Activity and Saw VI, the reboot of Short Circuit, horror films in general and much more.

The guys also make some great picks this week including Matt’s pick of teen horror zombiefest Dance of the Dead and Chris’ pick of the 1979 horror classic Phantasm, featuring Angus Scrimm as “The Tall Man.”

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques or offers of sponsorship, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter and at Facebook, MySpace or via email.

Thanks for listening.

Taking advantage of the San Diego Comic-Con crowds, Lionsgate has just released clips for their Fall movies, Saw VI and Gamer.

The chilling R-rated Saw VI clip certainly ratchets up anticipation for the movie, and viewers might want to think twice about entering the insurance industry. Saw VI hits theaters on October 23, is directed by Kevin Greuter and stars Shawnee Smith ,Tobin Bell, Betsy Russell, Costas Mandylor, Mark Rolston and Peter Outerbridge.

The action thriller Gamer clip treats viewers to a future where humans can control other humans; in this case, Gerard Butler as the cult hero Kable. The film is written and directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, and also stars Michael C. Hall, Amber Valletta, John Leguizamo, Kyra Sedgwick and Logan Lerman. Gamer will be released on September 4.