If there's one constant in late October, it's horror films, as studios try to get at least one out in the weekend or two leading to Halloween. What does not come out, with a few exceptions, are big budget fare, as studios try to clear the decks ahead of the upcoming holiday movie season.
One Year Ago--October 26, 2018: The weekend before Halloween was very quiet, as the same top four from the previous weekend--Halloween, A Star is Born, Venom, and Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween--repeated in the exact order. The best any newcomer could do was 5th, which is where submarine drama Hunter Killer opened. Despite the presence of Gerard Butler and recent Oscar winner Gary Oldman, the thriller, in which American sub crews try to prevent a rogue Russian general from starting World War III, was basically a dump, as it opened to poor reviews and $6.7 million, and would only sail on to a total of $15.8 million. At least Hunter Killer made the Top 10. The only other newcomer was the previous week's limited release Mid90s, which rose to #10 after going wide. Opening outside the Top 10 was Johnny English Strikes Again, the third entry in Rowan Atkinson's once-every-presidential administration spy spoof series. Universal only opened it on less than 600 screens, despite a supporting cast that included Charles Dance, Michael Gambon, and Emma Thompson. The low theater count, coupled with the largely negative reviews, condemned Johnny English to an $1.6 million opening and a $4.4 million final. Luckily for the film, it did far, far better overseas where Johnny English and Atkinson are far more popular. Also opening outside the Top 10 was the Christian drama Indivisible, about the marital problems of an army chaplain and his wife, and how they overcame them (spoiler alert: Jesus!). Despite better-than-expected reviews (which were still not that great), it opened to $1.5 million and finished its run with $3.5 million. Oddly only opening in limited release was Luca Guadagnino's remake of Suspiria, which decided to wait until after Halloween to go semi-wide. To be honest, this horror thriller, in which Dakota Johnson begins to suspect that something very evil is going on at her prestigious dance school, run by Tilda Swinton, was probably always going to be way too weird for mainstream consumption. But if there was any weekend where audiences might be willing to take a chance on a weird horror movie, it was the weekend before Halloween. Instead, Suspiria ended up getting mixed reviews upon its semi-wide release (though those that loved it really loved it) and never really broke out in November, finishing its run with $2.5 million.
Five Years Ago--October 24, 2014: A couple of low-budget programmers took the top two spots. Both would be unexpected hits and both would get follow-ups. Only one would become a massive franchise, though. Opening at #1 was Ouija, a horror thriller about a bunch of teens stupid enough to use the spooky board (trademarked by Hasbro, which also produced) to contact an evil spirit who wants them all dead. Critics, needless to say, weren't impressed with the silliness, but with Dracula Untold and Annabelle mostly played out, this PG-13 entry attracted a large teen audience looking to be scared. Ouija opened to $19.9 million and would gross a surprising $50.9 million, and would earn a prequel in 2016. Keanu Reeves had largely disappeared from mainstream movies after 2008's The Day the Earth Stood Still, finally resurfacing in 2013's very expensive, very disappointing 47 Ronan. His next movie was a much more modestly budgeted thriller about a retiree whose quiet life is shattered by a bunch of goons who kill his beloved dog. Unfortunately, those goons have no idea that they decried to attack--and earn the wrath of--retired superassassin John Wick. Critics were surprisingly kind to the film, and audiences were happy to pay to watch Reeves kill about 90% of the cast. John Wick opened to $14.4 million and would play well through much of November, ultimately wrapping its run with $43 million. It wouldn't be until home viewing that the film truly became a cult classic, though. Its sequel in 2017 would more than double the first film's gross, and this summer's Chapter 3 would nearly double the gross of Chapter 2. Needless to say, Chapter 4 has already been greenlit. Down the chart, St. Vincent would expand to wide release and come in 6th, behind Fury, Gone Girl, and The Book of Life.
Ten Years Ago--October 23, 2009: After four weeks, Paranormal Activity finally made it to the top of the box office, easily beating the gross (in both senses) of the debuting Saw VI. The torture porn franchise, which had been churning out a new installment every October since 2004, was definitely showing its age. The entry could only muster $14.1 million, and would end its run with $27.7 million, by far the lowest in the franchise. Still, Saw VI was a smash compared to the other three wide releases of the weekend. Opening in sixth, after holdovers Where the Wild Things Are, Law Abiding Citizen, and Couples Retreat, was Astro Boy, an animated remake of the classic anime series. The film made the interesting decision for a family film to kill off the point-of-view child character early on, who then gets replaced with the titular robot character (voiced by Freddie Highmore). Nicholas Cage voices the robot's "father", a robot scientist who comes to realize that his new invention is not his son and ultimately rejects the mechanical doppelganger. With that bleak plotline, it's not exactly a surprise that family audiences found something better to do. Astro Boy opened to $6.7 million and would end its brief run with $19.6 million. Opening in 7th was the awkwardly-titled YA adaption Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant. Made at a time when studios were adapting nearly any YA novel with a supernatural theme hoping to find something that could be the next Twilight, Cirque du Freak was about an ordinary teenage boy who, thanks to a series of events, becomes the half-vampire assistant to the fully vampire head of a traveling freak show (John C. Reilly). A pre-Hunger Games Josh Hutcherson has a supporting part, and the cast has several familiar faces such as Salma Hayek, Willem Dafoe, and Ken Watanabe. Both critics and audiences were underwhelmed, as Cirque opened to $6.3 million and topped out at $13.9 million. Debuting outside the Top 10 was failed Oscar bait Amelia, starring Hilary Swank as Amelia Earhart, Richard Gere as her husband, and Ewan McGregor as her lover. Critics trashed the drama, mostly calling in boring, and audiences ignored it, as could only manage $3.9 million for its opening, and would top out at $14.3 million.
Fifteen Years Ago--October 22, 2004: Just in time for Halloween, the remake of the Japanese horror hit The Grudge arrived at #1. Unlike most American remakes of Asian horror films, this one retains its Japanese setting, even as it casts American Sarah Michelle Gellar. She play an expat in Tokyo who is unfortunate enough to enter a cursed house haunted by the deceased original owners who are still so mad at the circumstances of their deaths that they kill everyone who enters. The remake was directed by Takashi Shimizu, who also directed the original, but most critics felt there was something lost in the translation. Still, The Grudge hit the spot with horror-starved audiences, as it opened to $39.1 million and would go on to gross $110.4 million, making it one of the biggest hits of the early fall. Movies set at Christmas tend to come out at any time of the year (Die Hard, for example, was a July release), but movies about Christmas almost exclusively open in November and December. That's why the arrival of Surviving Christmas over a week before Halloween remains puzzling. Ben Affleck plays an obnoxious millionaire who, after getting dumped by his girlfriend, decides to pay the family living in his childhood home to pretend to be his family for the holidays. James Gandolfini and Catherine O'Hara play the unfortunate new owners, who can barely stand their new houseguest, and Christina Applegate plays their daughter, who is alternately charmed and repulsed by Affleck. Critics found the comedy scarier than The Grudge, and audiences, who understandably weren't quite in the mood for Christmas movies yet, avoided theaters showing the film like they were cursed. Christmas would open in 7th (behind Shark Tale, Shall We Dance, Friday Night Lights, Team America: World Police, and Ladder 49) to $4.4 million and would top out at a mere $11.7 million. The film was such a bomb that not only was it out of theaters by Thanksgiving, it was on video and DVD by Christmas, only two months after theatrical release. Opening in limited release was Sideways, a comedy-drama starring Paul Giamatti as a struggling writer and teacher who sets off with his actor best friend (Thomas Haden Church) through a trip through California wine country, where Giamatti plans to drink and drink and drink some more, while Church looks to have one last fling before his impending wedding. While on the trip, Giamatti falls for waitress Virginia Madsen. The Alexander Payne-directed film was a massive critical success and would prove to be a solid commercial success as well, eventuality grossing $71.5 million. It would earn five Oscar nominations, winning for its adapted screenplay and also getting nominations for Madsen, Church, Payne's direction,and Best Picture (but, shockingly, not for Giamatti, whose sole Oscar nomination to date wouldn't come for another year).
Twenty Years Ago--October 22, 1999: In July, Taye Diggs starred in The Wood, a comedy-drama with a mostly African-American cast centering around a wedding, and filled with flashbacks to the younger days of the various members of the wedding party. Opening this week at #1 is The Best Man, a comedy-drama starring Taye Diggs with a mostly African-American cast centering around a wedding, and filled with flashbacks to the younger days of the various members of the wedding party. As the film opened at #1, audiences clearly were fine with the similarities between the two films, the latter of which also starred Nia Long, Morris Chestnut, and Terrence Howard, and marked the directorial debut of Malcolm D. Lee. The Best Man led a crowded weekend of new releases, opening to $9 million, and leaving on its honeymoon with $34.1 million. After long-running hit Double Jeopardy in second and last week's #1 Fight Club in third, comes Martin Scorsese's Bringing Out the Dead. The drama stars Nicolas Cage as a burned-out New York City paramedic during the course of one surrealistic weekend. Patricia Arquette plays the daughter of one of his patients, and John Goodman, Ving Rhames, and Tom Sizemore play his partners on various ambulance runs. The film received generally good reviews, though critics were not as enthusiastic about it as they were about other Scorsese films. Compared to its budget, the film was a flop, as it opened to $6.2 million and was left for dead at $16.8 million. The Story of Us and American Beauty occupied slots #5 and #6, ahead of Bats at #7. This low budget creature feature starred Lou Diamond Phillips as the sheriff of a small Texas town that is being invaded by genetically altered bats with a taste for humans. Critics. unsurprisingly, found the film utterly ridiculous, and audiences apparently decided to wait until the horror movie opening next week to go and be scared. Bats opened at $4.7 million and topped out at $10.2 million. Throughout the late 90s, various stars of Friends kept trying to make movie stardom happen by starring in various movies that, with a few exceptions, generally went nowhere. One might have thought Matthew Perry would have noticed the plot to Three to Tango bore a certain resemblance to several of Chandler's storylines on his sitcom, but then again, he admits he doesn't remember much from this era. Perry plays a guy whose new boss (Dylan McDermott, also on a TV show better than this) asks him to babysit his mistress (Neve Campbell, who perhaps decided she wanted to star in movies with all the Friends, and who also was on a TV show better than this), since he thought Perry was gay. Perry is not gay, and, well...you can probably guess the rest. Critics certainly didn't like it much, and audiences preferred to see Perry for free on Thursday nights (and, for that matter, McDermott for free on Sunday nights and Campbell for free on Tuesday nights). Tango opened to $4.4 million and finished its dance with $10.6 million. Opening down in 15th was Crazy in Alabama, a weird, 60s-set comedy-drama that's essentially two movies in one, one starring Melanie Griffith as an abused wife who kills her husband and then takes off for Hollywood, and the other starring Lucas Black as a kid who gets caught up in the local civil rights movement. Critics couldn't make heads or tales of the film, directed by Griffith's then-husband Antonio Bandaras, and audiences decided the best thing to do was to just ignore it, as it opened to $1 million and would finish with $2 million. Opening in limited release was the wresting documentary Beyond the Mat, focusing on the lives of several pro wrestlers, including Mick Foley, both in and out of the ring. The doc, which features the first film appearance of a young Dwayne Johnson, would get a more successful re-release in the spring of 2000, and would ultimately gross $2.1 million.
Twenty-Five Years Ago--October 28. 1994: This year, Halloween weekend audiences preferred sci-fi to horror as Stargate opened big at #1. The first major film directed by Roland Emmerich, the film starred James Spader as a linguist who specializes in ancient Egypt, who helps the military decipher the hieroglyphics necessary to get the titular stargate to work. Once opened, he and Kurt Russell, as the military head of the operation, enter the portal and are transported to another world, one strongly influenced by ancient Egypt and ruled with an iron fist by the God Ra (Jaye Davidson, in his second and final major role). Critics didn't like it much, but audiences came out in droves, as it opened to $16.7 million and finished its run with $71.6 million, While no theatrical sequel was ever produced, there was a long, long, long series of TV spinoffs. Pulp Fiction, The Specialist, and Love Affair finished 2-4, ahead of the 5th place opening of The Road to Wellville. A bizarre comedy-drama, the film starred Anthony Hopkins as Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, the inventor of corn flakes (and brother of the founder of the cereal company), whose extremely eccentric ideas for maintaining health were put in practice at his popular health spa. Matthew Broderick and Bridget Fonda played a married couple who are patients at the facility, and John Cusack is a businessman trying to market his own cereal. Despite the all-star cast, critics were largely underwhelmed, and so were audiences, as it opened to $2.6 million and finished its short run with $6.6 million. Flopping in 10th was the thriller Silent Fall, starring Richard Dreyfuss as a child psychologist trying to help a young, mute autistic boy who is the only witness to his parents' brutal murders. Linda Hamilton played his wife, John Lithgow, in his third flop of the fall, played a rival psychologist, and Liv Tyler made her film debut playing the boy's older sister. Audiences were not interested in whodunit, as the film opened to only $1.5 million and would finish with $3.2 million. Outside the Top 10, the Disney-produced family-friendly biopic Squanto: A Warrior's Tale, which at least cast an actual Native American, Adam Beach, in the title role, debuted to indifferent reviews. The film, which might have done marginally better a couple weeks later, closer to Thanksgiving, debuted in 14th to $1.1 million and would finish its run with $3.3 million.
Thirty Years Ago--October 27, 1989: Look Who's Talking continued to dominate in its third week, making more than twice as much as the debuting Shocker at #2. The Wes Craven-directed horror flick, starring future X-Files co-star Mitch Pileggi as a serial killer who made a deal with Satan to come back as electricity with the ability to possess other people after his execution. A young Peter Berg plays a college kid who discovers that he's his son, which leads him to take on the responsibility of stopping him for good. The thriller got mixed reviews, but as the only horror film out for Halloween weekend, it did decent business, opening to $4.5 million and finally grossing $16.6 million. Five years after the last movie called The Bear, another The Bear, this one about an actual bear, opened in third. Directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, the film told the story about an orphaned grizzly cub and the adult Kodiak who takes the cub under his wing. The film, which was originality released in France in 1988 (the US was one of the final territories it opened in), told their story, as well as the story of two hunters determined to kill the adult, with virtually no dialogue. The film would get an Oscar nomination for editing, and after a slow opening weekend, would end up being a very leggy hit through the holidays. It opened to $3.7 million and would go on to gross $31.8 million. Opening at the other end of the Top 10, at #9, was Immediate Family. The drama starred Glenn Close and James Woods as a childless couple who decide to adopt, and Mary Stuart Masterson and Kevin Dillon as the teenage couple who decide to give up their baby for adoption. The film received mixed reviews, and despite the top tier cast, audiences stayed away, as it opened to $1.7 million and finished with $5.9 million. Opening in tenth is the romantic comedy Worth Winning, where, to win a bet, wealthy weatherman Mark Harmon must convince three separate women, including Madeleine Stowe and Leslie Ann Warren, to accept his marriage proposal. Opening to largely negative reviews, the comedy was roundly ignored, as it could only manage $1.5 million to open and would top out at $3.7 million. In limited release, the comedy-drama Dad, starring Jack Lemmon, Ted Danson, and Ethan Hawke as three generations of a family who come together to reconnect after the family matriarch (Olympia Dukakis) has a heart attack. The film, which also starred Kathy Baker and Kevin Spacey as Lemmon's daughter and son-in-law, would go wide in November and ultimately gross $22.1 million, while garnering mixed reviews.
Thirty-Five Years Ago--October 26, 1984: If you think about it, it's downright bizarre that Arnold Schwarzenegger became one of the biggest movie stars on the planet. He's not that good of an actor, his appearance makes it practically impossible to play any roles outside of cops or soldiers, he has a thick Austrian accent, and his last name has four syllables and 14 letters. And yet, for over a decade, from the mid-80s to the mid-90s, nearly every movie he did was a blockbuster. It helped that he knew exactly what his wheelhouse was and for the most part stuck to it, and even if he wasn't the greatest acting talent around, he did have charisma to spare, good comic timing, and a way with a one-liner. Still, even though the Conan movies were successes, it's unlikely he'd have the box office run he did (and the political career that followed) without his most iconic role, as The Terminator. Despite being the title character, the Terminator is basically a supporting role, as much of the focus is on Linda Hamilton's Sarah Conner, who has no choice but to run when she learns an unstoppable cyborg from the future has come back in time to kill her, and Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese, the human soldier who is sent back to protect Sarah to the best of his ability. But Schwarzenegger makes the most of his relatively brief screentime, looming over the movie far more than either Hamilton or Biehn. The film is so iconic that its getting a 35-year anniversary commemorative sequel next weekend, but its startling to realize it was only a minor hit back in 1984. It did top the box office its opening weekend, but made a relatively modest $4 million. Good reviews and word of mouth gave the film some legs, and it ended up grossing $38.4 million. As Schwarzenegger's star grew over the next few years, the film became a huge sensation on home video, enough so that, six years later, when Cameron (whose first big film this was) wanted to direct a sequel, Carolco Pictures happily gave him a budget nearly three times the gross of the first film. Opening in second, only a bit over $10,000 behind The Terminator was the horror compilation film Terror in the Aisles, which probably did the business it did by being the only remotely horrific film out for Halloween. Hosted by horror vets Donald Pleasence and Nancy Allen, Aisles showed numerous, often gory clips from horror and sci-fi movies throughout the years. It would open to $4 million, but fade fast once Halloween was past, ended with a final gross of $10 million. In third was another new release, Brian De Palma's Body Double, a thriller about a housesitter who becomes obsessed with spying on his neighbor. When she is brutally murdered, he has to clear his name before the police decide to pin the crime on him. More or less a mashup of Rear Window and another 50s Hitchcock classic, the film got mixed reviews. It opened to $2.8 million and ultimately grossed $8/8 million, but ended up having a long afterlife as a cult hit. After Places in the Heart, Thief of Hearts, and Teachers (which, after three weeks on top, fell all the way to sixth) came the week's other two newcomers. Directed by Michael Apted, Firstborn was a drama about a teenager who realizes his mom (Teri Garr) is dating a creep (Peter Weller) but is unable to convince anyone else. Featuring early performances by Sarah Jessica Parker and Robert Downey, Jr., the film got mixed reviews and opened in 7th to $1.6 million and would end up with $6.3 million. Opening in 8th was the adventure comedy American Dreamer, starring JoBeth Williams as an American who, while on vacation in Paris, gets amnesia and becomes convinced she's a superspy. Tom Conti, coming off his Oscar nomination the previous year, plays the author of the series of novels featuring the character Williams believes she is, who finds himself falling for her. Critics were underwhelmed, comparing it unfavorably to the spring hit Romancing the Stone (which had a somewhat similar premise). Dreamer opened to $1.6 million and would go on to gross $5 million, before, like Firstborn, slipping into obscurity.
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