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Halloween Friday Numbers AnalysisBy John HamannNovember 1, 2003
Halloween hit on a Friday for the first time since 1997 this weekend, and its effect on the Friday box office was noticeable; horror films held well, and all the rest did not. That’s why Disney decided to pull the odd move of opening their huge Brother Bear on Saturday this weekend instead of the usual Friday. Check back to BOP tomorrow to see how Brother held up; meanwhile, let’s have a look at how Halloween affected box office. Alien Re-releaseWith a Friday Halloween, new films were few and far between this weekend –- any new films that did appear were either limited releases or held until Saturday. 20th Century Fox decided to do something different this weekend, and re-release their classic horror sci-fi Alien on 347 screens. Unfortunately, the film that started a franchise failed to take advantage of the special spooky day. Alien failed to make the top ten on Friday – it grossed less than $565,000, and goes from good idea to car accident in a heartbeat.
The Human StainWith high impact starpower from Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman, color me surprised that Miramax chose to go the platform release route for The Human Stain; I would have expected either the vanity NY/LA release, or a 2,500 venue wide release. A film like this one needs to create venue average headlines, and a release at 160 sites on Halloween doesn’t sound like a smart move to me. It wasn’t. The Human Stain also failed to make the top ten on a slow Halloween Friday, and it looks like the Miramax film won’t make the top ten for the weekend, despite only needing about $2 million to make the grade (a theatre average of $12,500).
In the CutHow many people really want to see Meg Ryan naked? Not many it seems, not even on Halloween. Seriously though, folks, In the Cut got off to an unimpressive start in wide release on Friday with a gross of $590,000 from 895 venues. If Halloween cut into its Friday gross, the weekend multiplier will be around 3.5. Look for a weekend gross of $2 million, just enough to make the top ten.
Notable HoldoversIn the holdover department, Scary Movie 3 got massacred on Friday, as the target audience were either out causing trouble or partying on Halloween. Scary Movie 3 dropped an out-of-hand 75% compared to the previous Friday, grossing $4.7 million. Pegging where Scary Movie 3 will end up for the weekend is not an easy task; Halloween throws a very large wrench into the usual system. Considering the Friday gross, I’m sure the film will come back over the rest of the weekend. Give the film a potential multiplier of 3.5, and an estimated weekend gross of $16.4 million, with a weekend drop of around 65%. Ouch!Okay, so we know how the Scary comedy did, what about the Scary Horror? The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was the only straight horror holdover this weekend (discounting Good Boy!), and it excelled on Hell Night, behaving similarly to how I Know What You Did Last Summer performed in its third weekend the last time Halloween fell on a Friday (1997). TCM grossed $3.6 million on Friday, a drop of only 28.5% compared to the previous Friday. If we assume TCM was frontloaded due to Halloween, I’ll expect a multiplier of 2.7, and a weekend gross of $9.6 million.
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Thursday, October 31, 2024
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