Not only are we currently experiencing a horror renaissance, but we are also now in the best possible horror season - and that's a situation of which David Gordon Green's Halloween has taken full advantage. The movie has been riding a huge wave of buzz since its festival premieres last month, and all of that positive word of mouth has translated into huge opening weekend numbers. Check out the full box office Top 10 below, and join me after for analysis!
Despite being one of the biggest horror franchises in the world, Halloween has never been a massive box office monster, with the previous champion of the brand being Rob Zombie's 2007 remake. That film, however, only made $80.3 million in its entire worldwide theatrical run, and the new chapter in the series has already surpassed that. With a global take of $91.8 million in the last three days, it's already made more money than any previous release, albeit unadjusted for inflation. As you can probably guess, its far and away the biggest opening that Michael Myers has ever seen.
All of that is really impressive - especially when you consider it only cost $10 million to make - but it also adds to the trend of massive fall releases that we've seen in the last couple of years. September and October have classically not been periods for blockbuster releases, but titles like Andres Muschietti's IT, Ruben Fleisher's Venom and now Halloween have proven that audiences will turn out it droves in the material is exciting enough. It ultimately should be a great thing for the film industry, if not just because it could help prevent studios stop stacking major titles on top of one another during the summer, knowing that there exists prime opportunity to make money at other times of the year. If movies are more spread out on the calendar then people will be more inclined to go, if not particularly because of the cost of a ticket these days.
It should also be noted that things look extremely positive for Halloween moving forward. Not only is there still more than a week before the film's titular holiday - keeping people in the mood - but there also aren't really any other highly anticipated titles coming out between now and the end of the month. There is a very real chance that the film will make north of $250 million worldwide by the time it's done playing on the big screen, putting it in league with Jordan Peele's Get Out ($255.4 million) and John Krasinski's A Quiet Place ($338.5 million).
As the only new wide release this past weekend, Halloween got the majority of the attention at the box office this week (making nearly as much as the rest of the Top 10 combined), but there are some other notable shifts to highlight as well. For starters, you may have noticed that Bradley Cooper's A Star Is Born was able to stay at its number two position for the third week in a row, making a little over a million dollars more than Venom in the past three days. Not only is the movie currently considered a front runner during award season, but it has now made over $200 million globally. It's the kind of small movie/big numbers success story that is driving 2018 to become the biggest years for the industry in a while.
Special notice should also be given to both George Tillman Jr.'s The Hate U Give (which expanded into 2,000-plus theaters) and David Lowery's The Old Man And The Gun (which was added to nearly 600 more locations). Both have received absolutely phenomenal reviews, and while they aren't exactly putting up money that gets them into the Top 5, they are still managing to find audiences. It's an encouraging development for this year, particularly as we're going to continue seeing a lot of smaller, acclaimed titles hit theaters between now and the end of December.
As mentioned, Halloween is likely to continue dominating for the rest of October, but next weekend will see the release of Johnny English Strikes Again, Indivisible, Hunter Killer and Suspiria - all of which should help mix things up. Be sure to come back next Sunday to see how everything shakes out.
