It became quite obvious around March or April of this year that 2009 had a real shot at hitting the $10 billion mark at the domestic box office. Gran Torino, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Taken and Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail all posted box office numbers that totally shattered expectations. Thanks to those early successes and a very strong summer, 2009's total domestic haul is currently around $560 million ahead of 2008's at the same point in the year. 2008's domestic haul ended up at around $9.619 billion, so if 2009 keeps up this pace it will cross the $10 billion mark with room to spare.

Luckily, the fall is turning out to be just as full of surprises. Zombieland delivered a solid opening two weekends ago, and it came on the heels of the success of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Even Couples Retreat posted a higher opening weekend tally than what most prognosticators expected. Still, the fall's biggest wild cards are shaping up to be Paranormal Activity and Michael Jackson's This Is It.

Paranormal Activity could easily end up being a $100 million hit for Paramount. It's rapidly becoming the must-see film of the fall, and its release strategy is going to be studied for years to come by both the major studios and independent distributors.

As for This Is It, it's already trumping Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: The Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour in the world of online sales, which means that it is likely to top that film's impressive $32.3 million opening. Even though This Is It is being billed as a limited engagement just like Hannah Montana was, I would not be surprised if Sony breaks that promise the same way that Disney did.

Add to those wild cards the fact that The Twilight Saga: New Moon could very well end up with $100 million during its first weekend alone, and you have all the makings of a very successful fall season.