Halloween Weekend Proves Horrifying for Most Releases at Box Office

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BOX OFFICE REPORT

October 29-31, 2021

(estimates from BoxOfficeMojo.com)

TOP 5

Dune $15.5 million
Halloween Kills  $8.5 million
No Time to Die  $7.8 million
My Hero Academia:
World Heroes' Mission 		 $6.4 million
Venom:
Let There Be Carnage		 $5.7 million

Audiences found spooky options elsewhere this weekend, as the box office was down quite a bit from several weekends of stellar openings. The much-discussed Dune suffered a massive 62 percent drop, earning just $15.5 million. Still, Warner Bros. already announced the sequel, due in 2023. And worldwide it's nearly made $300 million. No matter how you slice it, it's one of the year's biggest hits.

Halloween Kills remained in second place for a second straight weekend. David Gordon Green's second Michael Myers sequel has earned $85 million thus far. Both it and Dune have proven that simultaneous day-and-date streaming releases aren't guarantees of low grosses. 007 stayed in third, as No Time to Die is struggling to even reach $150 million. That means it won't surpass Die Another Day, Pierce Brosnan's highest-grossing but worst-reviewed outing as Bond.

In a turn that's only surprising if you didn't know how popular it was, the My Hero Academia movie World Heroes' Mission took in $6.4 million on less than 1,600 screens. The adaptation of the popular anime series did better than the weekend's other two wide releases, which had much more awareness. Venom: Let There Be Carnage dropped to fifth, but became the year's second-biggest movie in the process.

Outside the top 5:

  • This Weekend's Indie Champ: The Souvenir Part II, Joanna Hogg's follow-up to her autobiographical drama. Playing on just three screens, the film averaged a massive $8,828.
  • It was a real horror show for Edgar Wright and Scott Cooper. Their much-anticipated (and much-delayed) new films – Last Night in Soho and Antlers, respectively – earned a weak $4.1 million each, essentially tying for sixth place.
  • The French Dispatch expanded beautifully. After its record average last weekend, it added 736 screens, jumping more than 100 percent.

Next weekend:

After mixed reviews and a lot of online nonsense, Eternals finally arrives. Even with all the noise surrounding it, it's going to be quite successful. I'm predicting an opening of at least $50 million.

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About Kip Mooney

Kip Mooney
Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.