We’ve covered weekend box offices for the month of October pretty extensively. It was hard not to with big tentpoles like Venom, Dune, and Halloween Kills, and it seems to have paid off in the long run, because domestically, things were the best they’ve been for theatres in a fairly long time.
Overall, October should have an estimated box office of $US638 ($849 AUD) million from the United States. That take home is said to be the largest domestic box office for theatrical films since February 2020, and has now surpassed July as the highest grossing month of the year. Accounting for this weekend, the month’s top 5 are all from big franchises: Venom 2 ($US190 million), No Time to Die ($US130M), Halloween Kills ($US85M), Dune (nicely at $US69M), and The Addams Family 2 ($US52M).
That’s good news for franchises overall, but not so much for the new releases closing out the month. My Hero Academia: World Heroes Mission did the best of the new batch, coming in fourth place at $9 million. Nowhere near the massive success of Demon Slayer: Mugen Train from over the summer, but a step up from the $8 mil opening of last year’s Heroes Rising. Towards the back of the top 10 were horror flicks Antlers and Edgar Wright’s time-travel mind bender Last Night in Soho, each with $6 million.
What awaits theatres for the month of November? To start with, there’s Eternals, next week’s pretty divisive Marvel movie about a group of costumed misfits trying to atone for not helping the world the last six or seven catastrophes. It’s expected to open at $US80M for its first weekend, given the pedigree of the MCU franchise up to this point. Fellow standout films for the year include Disney’s Encanto, and Ghostbusters: Afterlife, plus Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City and House of Gucci. It’s anyone’s guess as to what’ll end up hitting with audiences and what doesn’t, especially with the holidays being thrown into the mix.
Editor’s Note: Release dates within this article are based in the U.S. Venom 2 and No Time To Die will be released on November 11 in Australia, Last Night In Soho will be out on November 18, The Addams Family 2 will be in cinemas on January 6 and Dune opens on December 2.