Halloween is once again the top movie of the day and the weekend, as it earned a strong $10 million on Friday. Yes, that’s a 70% drop from last Friday’s $33.3m opening day, but we’re still talking about a $10m slasher sequel that just soared over the $100m domestic milestone in eight days of release. And yes, it continues to play like a more frontloaded Annabelle, a relatively frontloaded horror prequel that fell 66% on its second Friday and ended up dropping 57% in weekend two and earned just 1.37x its respective $61.4m ten-day total by the time it exited North American theaters. But, again, that would still mean an over/under $169m domestic cume for the Blumhouse blockbuster. We’re still looking at an over/under $30m second-weekend gross (-61%) and a $125m ten-day cume. Can I get a “#CanThisFranchiseBeSaved?”?

David Gordon Green, Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley’s Halloween, which stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer and Andi Matichak (spelled it right on the first try!), is a straight sequel to John Carpenter and Debra Hill’s original 1978 Halloween. It has currently earned $105 million domestic as of yesterday. Inflation notwithstanding, a $30m weekend is just below what the likes of Puss in Boots ($34m in 2011) Bad Grandpa ($32m in 2013) and the first two Saw sequels ($31m in 2005, $33m in 2006) snagged in their debut frames in late October. Big movies can still open just before Halloween (Scary Movie 3 opened with $49m on this weekend in 2003). But since Hollywood didn’t offer any, Halloween had to hold up the theatrical industry almost by itself for two weeks in a row.

Blumhouse's Halloween will today pass the adjusted domestic gross of Halloween: H20 ($55 million in 1998/$107m adjusted) to become the second-biggest Halloween movie behind only the first Halloween ($47m in 1978/$185m adjusted). I guess that makes it A) the biggest Halloween sequel even when factoring higher ticket prices and B) a bigger Halloween II (which this technically is) than Halloween II ($25m in 1981/$84m adjusted) and Halloween II ($33m in 2009). It should be past the unadjusted gross of The Ring ($129m in 2002) by Tuesday or Wednesday to become the second-biggest scary movie ever released in October behind Gravity ($274m in 2013, and yes it counts). It’ll get an uptick on Halloween night (Boo! A Madea Halloween earned more on its second Monday, 10/31/16 than its first Monday), but this one should disappear by mid-November.


That was arguably part of the plan, or at least an expected result. Yes, movies that break big tend to be a little leggier than they used to be. Even The Boy pulled $35 million from a $10.5m debut 2.5 years ago, which is why STX is producing a sequel. Halloween made almost as much in its first day as The Boy earned in total. When you’re Universal/Comcast Corp. and are releasing four more big titles (The Grinch, Green Book, Mortal Engines, Welcome to Marwen) between now and the end of the year, you’re not so concerned as to whether your $10m Halloween sequel can leg it out after a $76m debut weekend. I still think they should attach that IMAX 3D version of “Thriller” to Halloween prints, if only on Wednesday, but I digress.

No, it’s not going to leg out like Get Out (or even Split), and we can debate to what extent it is expanding beyond the hardcore fan base (and general horror junkies). But A) we’re still looking at one of the biggest-grossing R-rated horror movies of all time and B) you don’t really need legs or “the unconverted” when you’ve got a $76.2 million debut and a $10m budget. Say what you will about Blumhouse spending its time rebooting Halloween or taking another crack at Spawn, as long as the budgets don’t demand interest beyond the cult following, then, well, that’s the correct way to go about it. The problem is when folks spend $160m on a Blade Runner sequel or $88m on The Predator and then are shocked when only the hardcore fans show up.

you don’t really need legs or “the unconverted” when you’ve got a $76.2 million debut and a $10m budget. Say what you will about Blumhouse spending its time rebooting Halloween or taking another crack at Spawn, as long as the budgets don’t demand interest beyond the cult following, then, well, that’s the correct way to go about it. The problem is when folks spend $160m on a Blade Runner sequel or $88m on The Predator and then are shocked when only the hardcore fans show up.