Every October sees a few big horror movies release in theatres, and this weekend’s was Halloween Ends. The third and final instalment to Blumhouse’s legacy reboot trilogy may not have entirely won over critics and audiences, but in terms of financials, it’s off to a pretty solid start.
As reported by Variety, Ends’ opening weekend amounted to $US58.4 ($81) million globally, with North America contributing the most with $US41.3 ($57) million. It’s a little over $US8 ($11) million less than what last year’s Halloween Kills opened with, but still makes it the first movie in North America to open above $US40 ($56) million since Nope back in July. Projections initially pegged the film with having a domestic opening around the $US50 ($69)-55 million range, but those didn’t take the film’s release method into account.
Like last year’s Halloween Kills, NBCUniversal released Ends both in theatres and on the paid tiers of its Peacock streaming service for two months. To that end, Universal has called Ends the most-watched piece of media, film or series, ever in the platform’s short two-year history. By comparison and according to third-party metrics site Samba TV, Kills had 2.8 million viewers on the service during its starting run, so make of that what you will. Without hard numbers, it’s difficult to tell how Ends stacks up in comparison and see what kind of impact that had on its box office take.
One hurdle that Michael Myers’ newest instalment faced was Paramount’s Smile. The film’s had minor domestic drop offs since its late September release; week two saw a 22% decline ($US17 ($24).6 ($24)) million, and this week’s$12.4 million marks a 33% decline from opening weekend. That puts the film at $US71.1 ($99) in North America and $US137 ($190) million around the world, which is pretty impressive for a film that cost $US17 ($24) million to make. Even with COVID, horror films like Barbarian and Pearl (or X!) have been a consistent box office winner this year. Time will tell how far Ends will go, but it’s worth remembering that next week will result in a hierarchy change with the release of Black Adam.
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