Below are the top 12 weekend final numbers from the North American box office:

1. Paranormal Activity - $21,104,070
2. Saw VI - $14,118,444
3. Where The Wild Things Are - $14,019,406
4. Law Abiding Citizen - $12,403,888
5. Couples Retreat - $10,620,685
6. Astro Boy - $6,702,923
7. Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant - $6,293,205
8. The Stepfather - $6,230,969
9. Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs - $5,250,541
10. Zombieland - $4,205,812
11. Amelia - $3,904,047
12. A Serious Man - $1,093,217

Overall, the US Box Office was down 17% on last weekend's gross.

The box office saw four new entries in to the Top 12 this weekend but it was the horror surprise of the year that took home the crown.

After slowly simmering to box office perfection in the past month, the ultra-low budget PARANORMAL ACTIVITY did the unthinkable by taking out top spot this weekend with $21.1M. The film has earned an absolutely incredible $61.5M against a $15,000 budget (plus a $300,000 distribution charge, but that's not being reported; not that it matters because even with that on top this result is still impressive). This is The Blair Witch Project of the 21st century and distributor Paramount have to be congratulated for marketing this to get such a perfect platform release, the sort that hardly ever happens in this day and age of ultra-wide opening weekend releases.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY's success was SAW VI's failure. The usual October stalwart got kneecapped by the former's astonishing success. The sixth film in the series earned a less than impressive $14.1M over the weekend, or less than half of the fifth film's opening weekend gross. It might not only be PARANORMAL ACTIVITY's success that hurt SAW VI; it may also be the fact that audience's have finally got tired of seeing the same thing over and over again. Sadly however, the film has already turned a profit saw we are likely to see SAW VII this time next year.

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE sufferred a bigger than expected drop this weekend, losing a large 57% of its audience on last weekend to earn $14M. The well reviewed fantasy film for adults got sandwiched in between all the competition and may have to rely on overseas grosses now to make its substantial $100M production budget back.

We do not see any other new openers until sixth and seventh spot with ASTRO BOY and CIRQUE DU FREAK: THE VAMPIRE'S ASSISTANT respectively. The former crashed and burned, with audiences not responding to the less than faithful adaptation of the beloved Japanese cartoon robot boy. The latter was an odd film, merging a number of different genres uncomfortably which has in the end made it a tough sell to audiences.

The last new opener for the weekend is AMELIA, which opened outside the top ten in eleventh spot with $3.9M. Despite starring Oscar winner Hilary Swank, the $40M budget film stumbled out of the gate and will disappear quickly.

The Top 12 at the US Box Office took in a total of $105,947,207 for the whole of the weekend 23-25 October 2009.