LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- The killer of the "Saw" franchise may be dead, but his sadistic spirit lives on.
Lionsgate's "Saw IV" led the weekend box office with $32.1 million, maintaining the horror franchise's position as a Halloween perennial, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Debuting at No. 2 was Disney's "Dan in Real Life," a romance starring Steve Carell, Juliette Binoche and Dane Cook that took in $12.1 million.
Overall Hollywood revenues declined for the sixth-straight weekend, though business was off only a fraction compared to the same weekend last year. The top-12 movies took in $86.1 million, down 2 percent, better results than in previous weeks, when business had fallen significantly more.
The results for "Saw IV" were on par with the debut of "Saw III," which pulled in $33.6 million over the same weekend last year. Since the original low-budget "Saw" became an out-of-nowhere fright sensation in 2004, Lionsgate has released a new chapter each October, all hits.
"I would expect to see 'Saw V' next year, 'Saw VI' the year after that and 'Saw VII' the following year if they can keep it up," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. "There's just something inherently gruesome and compelling about these movies. I don't know what that says about society in general, but it certainly works at the box office."
"Saw IV" features post-mortem horrors concocted by the fiendish killer Jigsaw (Tobin Bell, seen in flashbacks), whose autopsy turns up a cassette tape in his entrails that leads the cops into a new snare of torture puzzles the madman left behind.
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BRING ON SAW 5: THE SAWENING!
