THREE-WAY RACE AT BOX OFFICE PREDICTED FOR THIS WEEKEND

Analysts are predicting a tight race for No. 1 at the box office this weekend. Holdovers The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and Frozen will face competition from another Paranormal Activity movie, this one subtitled The Marked Ones and targeting Latino audiences. All three are likely to earn around $20-25 million. The Marked Ones is the only new release this weekend, and it was reviewed by only a handful of critics. Mark Olsen in the Los Angeles Times says that while it doesn’t have the inventiveness of its predecessors, it is nevertheless “refreshingly uncynical and straightforward in its desire to simply be a movie that makes the audience jump and be scared. It’s a fun fright film and wants to be nothing more.” But Peter Howell in the Toronto Star remarks that “this rapidly deflating franchise should be titled Paranormal Stupidity” and concludes that it’s not “very scary and it’s not very funny, so really, what’s the point?”