'Halloween' Slices Up a Monster $77.5 Million Opening

With a staggering, $77.5 million debut, Universal and Blumhouse's Halloween topped the weekend with the second largest October opening weekend of all-time. The horror film headlined a massive weekend overall weekend, that saw the top twelve combine for over $160 million, making this the second largest October weekend ever.

As already mentioned, Halloween's $77.5 million three-day debut was the second largest October opening weekend of all-time, coming less than $3 million shy of the record set by Venom earlier this month. That said, Halloween did deliver the largest October opening day of all-time, topping Venom's $32.5 million. The film's opening is also the second largest ever for an R-rated horror, topping the $53.8 million opening for The Nun a month ago and behind It's $123.4 million debut last September.

The film, which carries a tiny, $10 million production budget, features Jamie Lee Curtis in her iconic role of Laurie Strode and beyond landing well with critics in advance of release, it was equally successful with audiences, earning a "B+" CinemaScore, which is a strong grade for a horror film. Overall, it played to a crowd that was 53% male and 59% were age 25 or older, The film should play well over the coming weeks, especially with its namesake holiday just around the corner.

Internationally, Halloween brought in an estimated $14.3 million from 23 markets, with Mexico leading the way with a chart-topping $4.9 million opening followed by the U.K. & Ireland ($3.6m), Russia ($1.79m) and Indonesia ($1.09m). The film still has 46 markets yet to open in including France next weekend followed by Australia, Brazil, Italy, Germany and Spain the following weekend and South Korea on October 31.

Finishing in the runner-up position is A Star is Born, which continues to climb the list of films that never hit #1 at the weekend box office. This weekend the film added an estimated $19.3 million to its domestic total, which now stands at $126.4 million as it enters its third week in release.

Internationally, A Star is Born remained strong, delivering an estimated $22.8 million from 75 overseas markets, pushing the film's worldwide cume to $201.1 million. This weekend saw #1 openings in Australia ($4.7m) and Hong Kong ($629k) with the UK still leading the way with $19.5 million. The last key market yet to open is Japan where the film will land on December 21.

Sony's Venom falls two spots after topping the weekend chart for the past two weekends with an estimated $18.1 million, pushing its domestic cume over $170 million as it too enters its third week in release. While falling from its #1 perch domestically, the film remained the #1 international release for the third straight week, bringing in an estimated $32.3 million from 65 overseas markets for an international cume totaling $290.7 million and a worldwide total of $461.2 million.

Sony also took the fourth spot on the weekend chart with Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, which brought in an estimated $9.7 million for a domestic cume that now totals $28.8 million after ten days in release. The film also added another $6.2 million internationally this weekend bringing its global cume to $39.9 million.

Universal's First Man rounds out the top five, dropping -46% in its second weekend for an estimated $2.35 million three-day and a domestic cume that now stands at $30 million. It's an unfortunate performance for the Universal title, which was hoping to play along the same lines of films such as Bridge of Spies and Argo, but it seems to have been lost in the shuffle. Internationally the film added 25 new markets, now playing in 47 total where it brought in an estimated $13.4 million for an overseas cume totaling $25.5 million. South Korea led the weekend's new markets with a #1 finish and estimated $3.5 million performance.

Just outside the top five is Fox's expansion of The Hate U Give, which played in 2,303 locations (+2,055) and delivered an estimated $7.5 million for a domestic cume that now tops $10.5 million. The film could be looking at a healthy run moving forward after receiving an impressive "A+" CinemaScore from Friday's audiences. The film played to an audience that was 64% female with 51% of the audience coming in aged 25 or older.

Rounding out the top ten is Fox Searchlight's expansion of The Old Man & the Gun, which expanded to 802 locations (+574) and delivered an estimated $2.05 million for the weekend, and a domestic cume that now totals $4.2 million.

Landing outside the top ten is Annapurna's expansion of The Sisters Brothers into 1,141 locations (+1,012) for a disappointing $742,014 and a per theater average of just $650.

In limited release, A24's release of Jonah Hill's Mid90s brought in an estimated $249,500 from just four locations for a chart-topping $62,375 per theater average. It's a great start for the film which will expand nationwide next weekend.

Additional limited releases include Fox Searchlight's Can You Ever Forgive Me? which brought in $150,000 from five theaters ($30,000 PTA); IFC's Wildlife debuted with $05,614 from five locations ($26,404 PTA); Bleecker's What They Had debuted with $18,845 from four locations ($4,711 PTA); Abramorama's The Price of Everything delivered $17,280 from one theater; Janus's re-release of Win Wenders's Wings of Desire brought in $11,635 from one location; The Film Arcade's An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn opened with just $4,800 from 16 theaters; Oscilloscope's On Her Shoulders opened with $4,500 from one location; Cinema Libre's The Advocates opened in one theater with $4,000; and Abramorama's Horn from the Heart debuted with $2,357 from one theater.

Next weekend sees the release of the submarine action-thriller Hunter Killer opening in ~2,600 locations along with Pure Flix's Indivisible. Additionally, Universal will debut Johnny English Strikes Again in moderate release following what has already been a strong overseas performance where the film has currently grossed $96 million from 57 markets. Amazon Studios will also begin its platform release of Suspiria and Neon will open Border while Roadside debuts Viper Club.