Earlier this week, tracking numbers for the new Halloween showed the slate-clearing sequel mercilessly slashing toward a franchise best opening weekend as engineered by Blumhouse Productions. That still looks to be the case, and although we obviously won’t see those numbers until Sunday, the return of Michael Myers put up a solid preview night — third-best for a horror movie, in fact, with $7.7 million for Thursday viewings. That stacks up against the $11.4 million raked in by 2017’s It remake and Blumhouse’s own Paranormal Activity 3, which cleared $8 million in 2011.
Even if Thursday night fell short of early shouts of $10 million from analysts, the Hollywood Reporter notes that the David Gordon Green-directed film, co-written by Kenny Powers Danny McBride, is still expected to exceed $70 million this weekend (even if Universal is hoping to calm expectations by projecting at least $50 million). In either event, the highly anticipated showdown between Myers and Laurie Strode has every chance at nailing the largest opening weekend for Blumhouse Productions, and that record, unsurprisingly, currently belongs to Paranormal Activity 3, which pulled in a $52.5 million opening for a domestic total of $104 million.
However this weekend ends for Blum and friends, crowds have certainly found no shortage of audience pleasing films this fall, ahead of the avalanche of more traditionally prestigious fare that will soon fill multiplexes. Venom slurped up the biggest October debut of all time two weeks ago alongside A Star Is Born, which (as expected) performed more modestly, but both films are still putting up solid numbers. Thanks to an old franchise with some fresh juice, the new Halloween should keep this month humming nicely until the very end.
(Via Hollywood Reporter & Deadline)
