Steve Mason is now on Facebook.

SUNDAY 9:30 a.m. (Pacific): High School Musical: Senior Year (Disney) has confounded the so-called "experts" again. HSM3 looks to be up as exponentially on Saturday from its soft Friday, and the Kenny Ortega-directed musical may reach $15 million for the weekend. All of my numbers for the weekend that I published on Friday (and everybody's weekend projections) were too low.

Halloween lands on a Friday only once every seven years, so there is not a lot of data to draw from, but trick-or-treating completely wiped out High School Musical 3 and damaged the performance of every movie on Friday. In terms of projecting the weekend, you almost need to throw the day out and treat Saturday and Sunday separately. So, HSM3 grabs $1.7 million on Friday (down 90 percent from last Friday's $16.5 million), then Saturday and Sunday come in more in line with expectations. Let's say $8 million Saturday (down 47 percent from last Saturday's $15.3 million) and $5.2 million today (down 47 percent from last Sunday's $9.7 million) for a $15M million take. That's a whole lot better than the $9.5 million that I originally projected on Friday.

Greetings, Moguls! To accompany the start of new November-January leagues next week, I'll be bringing you a Special Edition column: the Holiday Bargain Basement Spectacular. My columnist cohorts will also expand their usual formats to include season-encompassing analysis. As the holiday season draws nearer, just imagine: There you are, curling up next to a fire (with or without roasting chestnuts), a warm sweater, a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows and a picturesque snow-covered landscape outside your window, perhaps some carolers serenading you. What could complete this wintry wonderland scenario? Why, the ability to read some expert analysis from the Fantasy Moguls team, of course. You may even want to print off our columns, so that you have physical literature to curl up next to the fire with. Doesn't it sound marvelously cozy?

High School Musical 3: Senior Year (Disney) is likely to win a second consecutive weekend, but there is a great deal of mystery about how this Kenny Ortega-directed sensation will play out. There were lots of questions going into opening weekend. The thinking was that teens would show up in big numbers Friday night and then Saturday's business would increase because Moms would bring carloads of 'tween girls to America's multiplexes. Instead, the big screen debut of the gang from East High generated 40 percent of its opening weekend business on Friday, resulting in a 10 percent Saturday dip.

Greetings one and all, and welcome once again to Bard's Eye View. Halloween may be right around the corner, and with it, all of its creeptastic and ghoulerrific eeriness, but if you've come here for the scoop on the films of Halloween, then, I just have to say ... [Insert obnoxiously loud buzzer sound] Where have YOU been? I talked about those movies weeks ago! Tomorrow's movies are yesterday's news around here! I've got a column to run, and it must pop POP POP!! (Sorry, got a little carried away.)

The release dates are changing like autumn leaves as studios juggle titles to both maximize box office performance and position projects for awards season. A pair of decidedly serious motion pictures with real Oscar pedigrees have both landed on Friday, Jan. 16, the start of the long Martin Luther King Jr. Day  holiday weekend. Paramount staked its claim first with Defiance directed by Ed Zwick, who has won Best Picture twice as a producer with Shakespeare in Love and Traffic, but has never even been nominated as Best Director. Now Warner Bros. is muscling in, however, with the second half of a holiday double-dip for perhaps the most successful matinee idol ever to switch to the director's chair.

Steve Mason is now on Facebook.

SUNDAY 9:30 a.m. (Pacific): High School Musical 3: Senior Year (Disney) has been a very tough movie to predict and project. My original prediction for the movie on Oct. 22 was $35 million-$38 million. Everyone told me I was way too low. I went online with my Friday tally on Friday night at 9:30 p.m., and it was almost dead right (I announced $16.5 million and today Disney says that number was $16.9 million). The question became how would the weekend play out.

Some of my regular sources said that HSM3 would drop on Saturday because it was fueled by teens. More of them expected to see a Saturday increase because many 'tweens would need Mom to take them to see the movie Saturday. On Friday night, I used the latter model and projected $55 million. As it turns out, HSM3 dipped by about 10 percent on Saturday to $15.3 million or so. That means a much lower three-day number of an estimated $42 million. Make no mistake: That is a huge number. Disney will get this movie to $150 million, it's just a question of how.

Hello once again, and welcome back to Bard's Eye View, and believe you me, no one is happier to be returning to this little Podunk column than I am. I'm not going to get all maudlin about my recent brush with death, even though it's both a sobering and amusing thought to think of myself as a lumbering, shuffling, newly-risen Shaun of the Dead-style zombie, trying to sate my need for fresh brains while Mr. Pegg and Mr. Frost hurl their CD collection at my head. Still, thanks to all the Fantaverse for your well-wishes, I'll never forget it. (Weak grin.)

The very first Oscar precursor every year is the announcement of the Gotham Independent Film Awards, presented by the Independent Feature Project (IFP). The GIFAs aren't a strong Academy Awards precursor, but sometimes the oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers has some influence with Golden Globe and Oscar voters. Back in 2004, Gotham voters got behind Maria Full of Grace in a big way, giving their Breakthrough Actor Award to Catalina Sandino Moreno, and she landed an Academy Award nomination for her heartbreaking performance as a "drug mule." In that same year Sideways won IFP's Best Feature and went on to crack the Best Picture field at Oscar time. The 2005 Gotham winners for Best Feature (Capote), Breakthrough Director (Capote director Bennett Miller) and Breakthrough Actor (Amy Adams from Junebug) all became Oscar nominees. In the last two years, the Gothams have helped Half Nelson screenwriters Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, Babel actress Rinko Kikuchi and Ellen Page from Juno to reach the movie industry's biggest night.

Greetings, Moguls! While September and October were largely exempt from them, November brings the return of big boppers, Moguls Monsters, huge hits. Whichever alliteration you choose to describe them (and yes, you must use alliteration, it's mandatory), there are some expensive options out there in the current season. In Box Office Moguls leagues, the two money magnets are Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa ($59) and Quantum of Solace ($51). Despite my insistence to the contrary, this July The Dark Knight turned out to be well worth spending that amount of money on. Although neither of these two will make as much as TDK did — heck, they might not even make as much as TDK COMBINED — could either of these two sure-to-be-successful sequels help you to secure a Box Office Moguls victory despite siphoning off half your funds?

The parents of American 'tweens will not be the least surprised about the certain blockbuster status of High School Musical 3: Senior Year (Disney). The original High School Musical debuted on the Disney Channel in 2006 with 7.7 million viewers, and its soundtrack became the No. 1-selling U.S. album of 2006. Then came its even bigger Disney Channel sequel, High School Musical 2, which grabbed an opening night TV audience of 17.3 million and spawned the No. 1 album in both the U.S. and the world for 2007.

High School Musical is, frankly, a license to print money for Disney. The word is synergy. The Disney Channel and Radio Disney have carefully crafted the HSM brand, building awareness, creating excitement and, of course, driving sales. The franchise is an absolutely unique, breathtakingly earnest, entirely wholesome, ready-made-for-the-big-screen property. Industry tracking indicates that High School Musical 3 is a sure-fire smash, and I am calling for something in the $35 million-$38 million range for opening weekend. My guess is that by the time this one wraps up its theatrical runs, it could reach $150 million domestic.