As stated previously, Hollywood has learned to avoid Halloween weekend, usually leaving it to cheap horror films and dumps. The last major film to open on the weekend was Inferno in 2016, and despite being the second sequel to The Da Vinci Code, complete with star Tom Hanks returning, it finished second behind the second weekend of Boo! A Madea Halloween.
With little competion, the weekend was easily won by the second weekend of Black Adam, which fell a decent-for-a-superhero-film 60% from its opening last weekend, to $27.5 million. That gives the latest DCU entry a ten-day total of $110.9 million, making it the 14th film of the year to cross the $100 million mark. The film held up better than the second weekend of the year's two MCU entries, but worse than The Batman did. These numbers suggest a final gross of around $170 million for Black Adam, which will be an improvement over the $140 million that Shazam! made back in 2019.
Finishing second for the second week in a row is romcom Ticket to Paradise, which held up decently, taking in $9.9 million for a ten-day total of $33.6 million. This isn't a great total (it's only a few million more than The Lost City made in its opening weekend back in March), but it's not terrible. If it is able to follow City's tranjectory, Ticket could check out between $60 and $70 million, and with little in the way of direct competition for weeks, that's certainly not out of the question.
Hoping to find a ready audience of people wanting to be scared over Halloween weekend, newcomer exorcist horror Prey For the Devil mostly played to empty theater seats, as the film could only pull in $7.2 million. This is roughly on par with the August opening of The Invitation. That ended up having extraodrinarly good legs for a horror title, something that Devil shouldn't expect. A final gross of around $20 million would be a win at this point.
On the other hand, Smile has legs that make The Invitation's look downright anemic. Once again, it had an extraordinarly small drop, to $5.4 million and a total of $92.8 million. It's still very much on track to hit $100 million, but the question now is if can get there (and be the 15th $100 million grosser of 2022) before Black Panther: Wakanda Forever hits that number either late next Friday or early next Saturday.
Not finishing anywhere near $100 million--and likely falling short of what the 2018 film did on its opening weekend--is Halloween Ends, which wasn't able to take advantage of its titular holiday, making $4.1 million to bring its total to a scary $60.6 million. It's a good thing that this was the planned finale of the franchise, since it's fairly unlikely that the current series would get any follow-ups with that number.
Going wide and jumping into the Top 10 is Till, the drama about the lynching of teenager Emmett Till in 1955 and its aftermath. The film, in which the previously relatively unknown Danielle Deadwyler, as Till's grieving mother, is a strong Oscar contender, took in $2.7 million, bringing its total to $3.6 million. That's not a great start, but the producers are hoping that strong buzz around the film will give it legs to last through the holidays and into award season.
Despite being the only family film out in wide release (other than The Bad Guys, which Universal for some reason sent back out this weekend to almost no business), said families continue to ignore Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, as it took in $2.7 million for a total of $32.5 million. The decidedly not-family-friendly word-of-mouth horror hit Terrifier 2 saw its grosses jump for the third straight weekend, as it is now playing in over a thousand theaters. It earned $1.9 million, for a total of $7.7 million. Expect the film to start slipping now that Halloween is past. The Woman King is wrapping up a successful run, taking in $1.1 million for a total of $64.6 million.
Also jumping into the Top 10 after several weeks of limited release is the drama Tár, starring Cate Blanchett (who will almost certainly get her 8th Oscar nomination for the role) as a demanding conductor. However, while the film did very well in limited release, it didn't earn much business in multiplexes, earning $1.1 million for a total of $2.5 million.
Outside the Top 10, the pro-abortion drama Call Jane, despite its timely subject matter, attracted almost no audience, taking in only $0.2 million despite playing on over a thousand screens.
Normally, the first weekend of November sees the launch of the holiday movie season, but once Disney decided to go with November 11 for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the traditional start date (at least since 1994) cleared out very quickly. The week's biggest opening One Piece Film: Red, a theatrical spinoff of the long-running action-comedy about a boatful of friendly pirates with extraordinary abilities. This is actually the 13th feature film spinoff of the anime (which has been running since 1999), but after successful wide releases of movie versions of fellow animes Dragon Ball, Demon Slayer, and Jujitsu Kaisen, its the first to get a wide release in North America. Also opening wide is the drama Armageddon Time, which is already playing in limited release. It, like Till and Tár, is hoping to be an awards season player, while also hoping that stars like Anne Hathaway and Anthony Hopkins can attract some business. Which color will win the weekend, Black (Adam) or Red? We'll find out next week.
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