By Ryan Parsons | Image property of Dimension, Variety.
Halloween
So the horror genre has still got some strength left after all. Though it took a remake, Rob Zombie's take on Halloween was able to take audiences out of the sun and into the theaters.
Box Office: Halloween
Halloween was able to dish out $31 million worth of screams for its opening weekend. Thanks to the help of the Labor Day holiday, Halloween is helping the summer box office go out in a bang with yet another surprising box office take.
With the addition of Halloween, the domestic box office take is now up 8% over the previous recordholder, summer 2004. Any suggestion of 'slump' seems like a thing of the past, with this year's take also coming in at over 11% more than last year's. Not that Hollywood needs more money, but the international take is up as well -- a whopping 20%.
For the first time, the domestic summer box office crossed the $4 billion mark. Through Monday, box office receipts totaled an estimated $4.152 billion, compared with $3.860 billion in 2004 and $3.739 billion last year.
Now the question remains on whether Hollywood will be able to compete (with itself) next year. 2007 had the advantage of multiple big-franchise sequels along with a couple new franchises including Transformers.
The big-budget actioners weren't the only ones to help out, as Apatow's raunchy comedies Knocked Up and Superbad gave the industry a solid kick.
It would seem that the only genre that didn't score over the sunny months was Westerns, but that could quickly be alleviated with the arrival of 3:10 to Yuma and The Assassination of Jesse James; both of which are prepping to kick off the fall.
Halloween represents one of the many films this summer to have larger-than-expected box office takes. Distributed by MGM and playing in 3,472 locations, the ninth pic in the horror franchise nabbed the biggest opening ever for the holiday and overturned recent talk that horror is no longer a box office draw. Previous record holder for Labor Day was Transporter 2, which debuted at $20.1 million in 2005.
Balls of Fury, which also bowed to a wide release this weekend, enjoyed an extended holiday with its Wednesday release and finished up with $16.8 million.
Add to Heffee!
