'Halloween Kills' Attempts to Slay the Competition This Weekend

Horror sequel Halloween Kills will try to build on the surprise success of its predecessor, 2018's Halloween. This new installment is getting unenthusiastic reviews, but it's still likely to take the top spot at the box office. Last week's top movie, James Bond's No Time to Die, had a disappointing debut and probably won't be able to hold on to the top spot. Read on for details.

Via Box Office Mojo.

No Time To Die may not have broken records last weekend, but the overall weekend box office did: It was the first time since the pandemic began that we had two weekends in a row with a total gross exceeding $100 million, which until this month only two weekends had accomplished. This weekend we might see that happen for a third week in a row with the releases of Universal’s Halloween Kills, the latest entry in the long running slasher franchise, and 20th Century’s The Last Duel, the latest historical epic from Ridley Scott. While we saw some big grosses from individual films over the summer, we’re finally starting to see a steady slate of films that audiences are showing up for and solid numbers from the market as a whole.

Halloween Kills, which is opening on 3,600 screens, is the likely number one for the weekend. The 12th film in the Halloween franchise is a continuation of 2018’s Halloween, which was produced by Blumhouse and rebooted the series, acting as a direct sequel to the original John Carpenter directed 1978 classic and disregarding the continuity of its many sequels. Jamie Lee Curtis is back as Laurie Strode as she faces off against the masked menace Michael Myers, and also returning is Halloween director David Gordon Green. His reinvention of the franchise took it to new box office heights, making $255 million worldwide, which is about 40% of the total gross of the entire series.

2018's Halloween opened to $76.2 million domestically, more than any of the other films in the series have made in their entire domestic runs, and not far behind the 2007 Halloween’s worldwide run of $80.5 million, previously the series’ best. 2018's Halloween had a total domestic gross of $159 million, which was $101 million ahead of Halloween (2007), and it was also the first Halloween film to have a strong international showing with $96.1 million, more than four times the $22.2 million earned abroad from the Halloween of 2007.

David Gordon Green’s Halloween also was the best reviewed film in the series since the original, scoring 79% on the Tomatometer, making it one of the few films in the series to go above 50%. Halloween Kills looks like it isn’t living up to its predecessor, but at 46% on Rotten Tomatoes it is still the fourth best reviewed film in the series. We are likely to see a similar trend in the box office, under-performing the previous film but still giving a strong showing compared to the rest of the series and to its budget (2018’s Halloween cost $10-15 million). The film’s availability on Universal’s streaming service Peacock may impact the gross, but fans have turned out for their favorite franchises this year whether or not the films were theatrical exclusive. Even half of the previous film’s opening would put it above many of this year’s blockbuster hopefuls, so it is hard to imagine a box office performance that would make anyone change their minds about making the sequel Halloween Ends, which is scheduled to hit theaters in October 2022.

Get the rest of the story at Box Office Mojo.