Slashers Freddy and Jason Top Box Office

LOS ANGELES -- The horror tag-team "Freddy vs. Jason" had a killer weekend as the showdown between the bad guys of the "Friday the 13th" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street" franchises debuted with $36.4 million.

That was more than the combined total for the entire theatrical runs of the last installments in each franchise. Last year's "Jason X" -- the 10th "Friday the 13th" flick -- topped out at $12.6 million, while 1994's "Wes Craven's New Nightmare" -- the seventh in that series -- grossed $18.1 million.

The idea of pairing "Nightmare's" Freddy Krueger and "Friday's" Jason Voorhees had been kicked around since the early 1990s, so there was great fan anticipation. The combination revitalized both movie serials, whose endless sequels had become parodies of themselves.

"It worked because it's a brand new series. It's an original movie with name recognition," said Russell Schwartz, head of domestic marketing for "Freddy vs. Jason" distributor New Line Cinema. "We took it seriously and didn't turn it into `Scary Movie.' Not that it doesn't have humor, but we didn't want to go too campy."

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http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/news/wire/sns-ap-box-office,0,4076319.story?coll=sns-ap-entertainment-headlines

I didn't get to see it this weekend, but I'm going soon, that's for sure.

In my opinion, anyway. It was only a LITTLE less campy than previous Nightmare/Friday the 13th outings but that's not saying much. The acting was awful, the dialogue (and thus the script) sucked. The original Nightmare on Elm Street was very creepy...they turned it into a cartoon. This effort really didn't help. It reminds of the Godzilla vs. Mothra type movies from the 60's.

It's playing on 2 screens in the cinema.

Should have known it was going big,

to a captive audience? Only rationalization I give myself
for a movie like this...