The final weekend of October went out without much noise. Neither of the pictures in wide release generated $5M openings and the Halloween weekend once again failed to show any strength at the box office. Leading the way… because someone had to… was the second weekend of DUNE with $15.5M, a decline of 62% from last week. HALLOWEEN KILLS took second place with $8.5M and third, went to NO TIME TO DIE with $7.8M. Specialty distributor Funimation took advantage of weak competition to roll out their latest anime feature MY HERO ACADEMIA: WORLD HEROES’ MISSION at 1,600 locations, generating $6.4M to wind up in a close fourth place to the big releases.
LAST NIGHT IN SOHO could only muster $4.2M for a sixth-place finish. There is some hope left for the picture in that it generated a “92% liked” from people that actually watched the picture. With the weekend being historically slow you have to second guess the release date and wonder how it would have done elsewhere on the calendar. In all likelihood, ANTLERS‘ one and only shot to succeed was probably this weekend and still, the horror movie only drew $4.1M for a dismal 7th place showing on a very slow weekend.
This weekend ended October’s run of four consecutive weekends generating at least 70% of the box office compared to 2019’s October. The total box office of $65.6M came up to only 57% of the same weekend in 2019. Looking ahead, exhibitors have high hopes for an immediate bounce back next weekend with the opening of Disney/Marvel’s ETERNALS. Judging from the brisk advanced sales, the next Marvel superhero opening should be very strong, and may well vie with SHANG-CHI to become the #1 North American title in 2021.