The Exorcist: Believer takes possession of the top spot, though it scares up less than expected.
Horror franchises tend to repeat the same story over and over. That's true of most franchises, of course, but horror tends to have the right combination of low production costs and high return-on-investment to mean that successful sequels can be churned out for years, long past when more mainstream series have run their course. Poor Sidney Prescott has been menaced by a series of psychos wearing identical Ghostface costumes 5 times (and would have been menaced a sixth if there wasn't a salary dispute with Neve Campbell). Entire generations of Elm Street teenagers have been slaughtered in their dreams by Freddy Kruger. And right now in theaters, a tenth group of hapless-if-not-exactly-innocent victims is learning how precious life truly is thanks to the various traps of Jigsaw and his minions.
Oddly enough, horror franchise makers can also operate on repeat. Five Octobers ago saw David Gordon Green, a director who previously had been best known for making acclaimed indies or stoner comedies starring James Franco, reboot an iconic 70s horror franchise by bringing back its original heroine and making it an event after a series of forgettable sequels. Halloween, of course, was a huge hit both commercially and critically (the two sequels, considerably less so). So, Green decided to reboot a different iconic 70s horror franchise by bringing back its original heroine and making it an event after a series of forgettable sequels. But that's pretty much where the similarities between Halloween and The Exorcist: Believer end.
Believer, starring Leslie Odom, Jr. and Ellen Burstyn, returning to the franchise for the first time since the original a half-century ago, haunted theaters this weekend to the tune of $26.5 million. That was below expectations as well as below the opening of The Nun II last month. With awful reviews and word of mouth, it's possible that Believer might struggle to make it to $60 million, even with Halloween (the holiday) coming up.
Last week's champ, Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie, fell to second in its second weekend, taking in $11.3 million. That's about a 50% drop, a bit steep for a family film, though Paw Patrol might be more front-loaded than a lot of kids movies. The ten-day total stands at $38.5 million, and should surpass the original's $40.1 million this week.
Saw X continues to cut through the competition, finishing with $7.8 million for the weekend. That's about a 58% drop, not terrible for a horror film. Its ten-day total stands at $32.2 million. It has already passed the final gross of Spiral and Saw VI and will likely pass the gross of Jigsaw by next weekend.
Hopes that word-of-mouth might save The Creator were dashed as the sci-fi movie fell 55% from last weekend, as the film brought in $6.3 million, for a ten-day gross of $25.1 million. Unless the film's grosses stabilize in the coming weeks, it will likely finish below $40 million.
The only one of last week's newcomers to not drop more than 50% is the Christian hit The Blind, maybe because much of the film's target audience wasn't even aware of its release. The biopic of Phil Robertson brought in $3.2 million, only dropping 25% from last weekend. Its ten-day gross stands at $10.6 million, and this could easily end up over $20 million by the end of its run. It's no Sound of Freedom, but given the low costs, this one should end up nicely profitable.
A film that likely won't be nicely profitable is A Haunting in Venice, which is heading toward the end of the seance with $2.7 million this weekend, for a total of $35.6 million. Another movie about a European-based haunting, The Nun II, will, on the other hand, be quite profitable, as it earned $2.6 million for a total of $81.1 million. It should move past Insidious: The Red Door in the next week to become the year's second-biggest horror movie.
Dumb Money was able to stabilize in its second wide weekend, earning $2.1 million for a total of $10.6 million. It still seems likely to finish short of $15 million, though. The Equalizer 3 will finish around $10 million or so behind the other two, as it brought in $1.8 million for a total of $88.8 million. It should top $90 million, but not make much more than that.
Back in 1993, Disney decided to dump its Halloween fantasy comedy Hocus Pocus in July, probably to avoid it going head-to-head with its other Halloween movie that year, The Nightmare Before Christmas. The film got largely lousy reviews, and opening the same day as another family film, the sleeper hit Free Willy, Pocus quickly disappeared from theaters. But a funny thing happened on the way to obscurity. In the mid-aughts, it became a hit on DVD, and just grew bigger and bigger each year until it became one of the quintessential Halloween movies. The film grossed a very-good-for-the-pandemic $4.8 million in an October 2020 re-release, and stars Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker would reunite last year for a straight-to-Disney+ sequel that probably should have gotten a theatrical release. The stage was set for another successful 30th anniversary re-release, and it got it, earning $1.6 million, about what Jurassic Park (a film that did slightly better back in 1993) earned on its own 30th anniversary re-release back in August.
The Exorcist was supposed to open this weekend on Friday the 13th, but instead, Taylor Swift saw a blank space, baby, and wrote her own name. The announcement of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, the concert film of her massively successful world tour that concluded its North American leg in August scrambled the movie release calendar, sending Exorcist back a week. As the traditional distributors wanted a bigger cut that Swift and her team were willing to give up and also wanted to schedule it for 2024 or even 2025, Swift went the unconventional route and struck a deal with AMC directly. Deciding that a rising tide lifts all boats, the theater company will distribute the film to any theater that agrees to the terms, including a minimum four-week run, set ticket prices, and a blackout on screenings from Monday through Wednesday, apparently to better mimic the concertgoing experience. That Eras will become the highest-grossing concert film of all time by the end of the weekend is a done deal--Justin Bieber: Never Say Never currently holds the title with $73 million--and indeed, it is expected to become the sixth film of the year to have an opening exceed $100 million. The question is how much will Swifties spend to see Taylor not quite live and in person. Could it top the $146.4 million The Super Mario Bros. opened to? Could it pass Barbie's $162 million to become the biggest opening of the year? Is there a chance it could get past $200 million to become the first opening on that level since Spider-Man: No Way Home in 2021? We'll find out next week.
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