It’s the first time since 2014 that Halloween has fell on a Friday in what is expected to be horrific for the weekend box office.
For the most part, the audience is expected to shrink greatly on Friday due to festivities, though a scary movie like Black Phone 2 might be able to find some semblance of an audience. Business is expected to bounce back Saturday.
The majors are scared appropriately so to technically release any new titles, though Focus Features is going wide with Yorgos Lanthimos’ Bugonia from 17 theaters to 1,800 in what’s expected to be a $4 million-plus second weekend. If that’s the case, that’s the most a Lanthimos movie has ever collected in a wide break. Bugonia with a great certified fresh Rotten Tomatoes score of 90% and very good audience score of 81% posted a great $41,7K theater average in its opening frame for a 3-day of $709K.
Netflix is re-releasing Kpop Demon Hunters which delivered the streamer its first No. 1 take with $19M over Aug. 23-24 in a wide release sans AMC. They have the No. 1 circuit this time. Netflix won’t disclose how many theaters, but it’s indeed north of 1,000. AMC has revealed the animated title will play 400 of its cinemas around the globe. Rivals expect about $6M for the most watched Netflix movie ever from Sony Pictures. The notion is that there isn’t any more juice left in that squeeze. Over 541 million global viewers have watched Kpop Demon Hunters.
So what’s No. 1? Either Universal/Blumhouse’s Black Phone 2 due to the spooky holiday or Paramount’s feature take of Colleen Hoover novel, Regretting You, which has had great word of mouth among its female demo. Both movies are expected to do $7M a piece. Through five days, Regretting You has a running total just under $17M. Black Phone 2 through its second Tuesday stands at $51.4M.
Sony/Crunchyroll’s Chainsaw Man, though No. 1 so far this week on Monday and Tuesday and a running cume of $21.8M, is expected to fall some -65% to -70% in weekend 2 ala other anime titles. After a No. 1 win last weekend of $18M, weekend dos will be around $5M on the low end.
Fathom also has the wide release of Summit/Lionsgate’s Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn 1 & 2. Universal is re-releasing Back to the Future in 1,900 theaters including Imax auditoriums.
Says one distribution boss about the upcoming Halloween frame, “It’s going to be a weird weekend.”
