Halloween season is upon us and the box office this weekend clearly showed just how hungry people are for some good-old slasher horror movies. Halloween Kills made a massive $50.4 million debut weekend leaving all competition in the dust. Its main victim this weekend was Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel.
Michael Myers is an unstoppable force of nature killing everything in his path, both literally and figuratively. Just like in his movies the Halloween killer has left a trail of dead bodies, most noticeably The Last Duel. The twelfth installment of the Halloween horror series was initially projected to make somewhere between $30 and $40 million this past weekend. Instead, it grossed a total of $50.4 million and thus snatched 5th place for this year’s top domestic opening weekends from A Quiet Place Part II. These are some very strong results, considering the film came out simultaneously on NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service.
20th Century Studios bet heavily on The Last Duel with a $100 million budget and Hollywood stars including co-writers Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as well as megastar Adam Driver. The Ridley Scott directed medieval epic about a woman’s honor did not shine on its debut weekend only grossing $4.8 million. A rather humbling defeat for a movie that rated 87% on Rotten Tomatoes and got B+ by audiences polled by CinemaScore.
This weekend’s box office results reflect on the reality that more mature audiences are still reluctant to go back to big cinema rooms whilst younger viewers are running back to theaters to feel that communal experience they have been missing for the past year and a half. After all, nothing beats going to the movie theaters with friends.
Leave a Comment