Box office suffers worst performing Halloween weekend in 31 years
The Hollywood box office has scored its worst Halloween weekend in some 31 years, with Regretting You and Black Phone 2 becoming the top-performing films.
The movie adaptation of the Colleen Hoover novel brought in $8.1 million in its second week of release, while the sequel horror film, starring Ethan Hawke, trailed hot on its heels by bringing in $8 million.
However, this still accounted for the worst-performing Halloween weekend seen at the box office in many years. The last time it was seen lower was in 1993, which garnered $49.2 million, compared to $49.8 million.
The box office figures, provided by Comscore, point to an unfortunate calendar of other events taking place over the weekend that turned audiences away from the cinema, not least the fact that Halloween itself fell on a Friday.
The company’s chief box office analyst, Paul Dergarabedian, said: “While this was a truly scary weekend for the industry, a confluence of factors created an imperfect marketplace storm wherein Halloween festivities along with one of the biggest sporting events on the planet [the World Series] dominated the zeitgeist over the weekend and thus had the effect of taking the spotlight off the movie theater experience,”
More notably, the Halloween disappointment comes at the end of a largely underwhelming month for the box office, as October also experienced its worst profits in some 27 years. Analysts are crediting this to a lack of a blockbuster effort hitting the screen compared to previous years.
Instead, there are a range of more artistic and award-skewed films on offer, such as Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia, starring Emma Stone. In the UK, the film amassed almost £768,000, reflecting a similar lacklustre trend in the country where no movie passed the £1 million mark over the course of the Halloween weekend.
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