The over-under on Universal/Blumhouse/Miramax’s Halloween Kills for its debut weekend is $50 million at 3,800 theaters. Some even see it possibly touching $60M, and that’s with a theatrical day-and-date on Peacock. That opening alone is what all films have been averaging at the box office over the last three weekends: $55M.
In 2021, Part 2 of the subset trilogy from David Gordon Green, Halloween Kills, opened to $49.4M and legged out to $92M stateside, also with the availability of Peacock. The service is still green, not as muscular as HBO Max or Disney+, hence the reason why ticket sales won’t get eroded greatly.
Why the bullishness on part 3? It’s the finale for this series from Green and co-scribe/producer Danny McBride, with Jamie Lee Curtis reprising her classic scream-queen role Laurie Strode. The R-rated threequel is expected to pull in older guys over 25 just like the last two.
Previews start at 5 p.m. Thursday. It sounds like movie theaters will have the pic exclusively for the night before it hits Peacock.
The first rebooted Halloween from Blumhouse, Miramax, Green, McBride and Curtis opened to the fourth-best debut at the October domestic box office with $76.2M in 2018; best ever for a movie about serial killer Michael Myers. Pic also grossed the best ever in the franchise at $159.3M domestic and $255.5M worldwide. The third weekend in October use to be a dead zone for product, but Halloween changed that.
Meanwhile, Paramount’s Smile, the other horror film in the marketplace, looks to ease 55% in weekend 3 with around $8M. The pic had a fantastic second Monday on Indigenous Peoples Day with $2.66M, up 21% from a week ago, for a running total of $53.4M.