Michael Jackson's This Is It Has $101 Million Reasons to Live On

For starters, Jackson's This Is It barely came within $10 million of matching Cyrus' Hannah Montana concert movie's opening weekend record ($31.1 million). Best of Both Worlds, which opened on a Friday, unlike the Wednesday-debuting This Is It, also made more money in its first five days than This Is It: $37.3 million versus $32.5 million.

Domestically. Internationally was another story.

As a draw, Jackson is like James Bond, bigger overseas than he is in the United States. And sure enough, two-thirds of This Is It's eye-popping worldwide gross came from the rest of the world, led by the Jackson-friendly environs of Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany.

According to Sony, the film's $101 million take is already a new worldwide record for a concert movie. This Is It cleared the old record, held by Best of Both Worlds, natch, by nearly $30 million—and counting.

Paranormal Activity (second place, $16.5 million), meanwhile, was the weekend's top-grossing non-Michael Jackson movie. Adding to its legend, the thriller actually made more money per theater than This Is It. 

Overall, the no-budget wonder has now grossed $84.8 million.

Elsewhere:

• In its third steady weekend, Jamie Foxx's and Gerard Butler's Law Abiding Citizen (third place, $7.3 million; $51.4 million overall) moved up to third, and topped its reputed $50 million budget.

• Halloween pulled a trick on Saw VI (fifth place, $5.6 million; $22.8 million overall), which saw ticket sales fall 61 percent from last weekend.

• Hilary Swank's Amelia (ninth place, $3 million; $8.3 million overall) sputtered into the Top 10 thanks to the departure of two relative old-timers, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs ($118.6 million overall) and Zombieland ($71.2 million overall), and a dearth of new arrivals.

• In limited release, The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day ($525,000) was, theater for theater, bigger than Paranormal Activity and This Is It; Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess' Gentlemen Broncos ($10,006) was, theater for theater, bigger than all but those two Top 10 hits.

Here's a look at the weekend's top-grossing films based on Friday-Sunday estimates as compiled by Exhibitor Relations:

1. Michael Jackson's This Is It, $21.3 million
2. Paranormal Activity, $16.5 million
3. Law Abiding Citizen, $7.3 million
4. Couples Retreat, $6.1 million
5. Saw VI, $5.6 million
6. Where the Wild Things Are, $5.1 million
7. The Stepfather, $3.4 million
8. Astro Boy, $3.04 million
9. Amelia, $3 million
10. Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, $2.8 million

(Originally published Nov. 1, 2009, at 9:15 a.m. PT)