ROTTEN TOMATOES: Box Office Guru Wrapup: Halloween Cuts Up Record $31M Labor Day Opening

Box Office Guru Wrapup: Halloween Cuts Up Record $31M Labor Day Opening

'Twas a treat for the Weinsteins this weekend.

by Gitesh Pandya | September 03, 2007

A record summer box office ended on a high note with a record Labor Day weekend led by Rob Zombie's new take on the horror classic Halloween which scored the biggest opening ever for this holiday frame. The R-rated creepfest grossed an estimated $31M over the four-day Friday-to-Monday period for MGM and The Weinstein Co. from an ultrawide 3,472 theaters for a powerful $8,932 average. That was enough to slash through the previous holiday best of $20.1M from 2005's Transporter 2 by a stunning 54%. Over the Friday-to-Sunday portion, the pic scored $26.5M and a $7,622 average. The gross for the Michael Myers fright pic surged ahead of industry expectations and ranked as the best horror opening since Saw III's three-day tally of $33.6M from last Halloween.

Marking the end of summer and a time when students begin going back to school, Labor Day weekend is typically the weakest of all the holiday weekends during the year. But the overall summer movie season was anything but. The domestic box office generated over $4 billion led by seven blockbusters that crossed the $200M mark with four sailing past the $300M milestone. Both were new industry highs.

Sony's two-time champ Superbad held up well in its third frame this weekend and grossed an estimated $15.6M for a 18-day cume of $92.4M. Another comedy aimed at young people, Balls of Fury, opened in the third spot with an estimated $13.8M from 3,052 locations for a decent four-day average of $4,534. Since its Wednesday launch, the ping pong pic has taken in $16.8M for Focus.

For the fourth consecutive weekend the threequels The Bourne Ultimatum and Rush Hour 3 were back-to-back on the charts. The Matt Damon assassin smash took in an estimated $13.2M for a total of $202.6M while the Jackie Chan-Chris Tucker action-comedy dropped to an estimated $10.4M for a $122.2M sum. Bourne crossed the $200M mark on Labor Day.

Following in sixth was Universal's Mr. Bean's Holiday with an estimated $8.1M for $21.1M to date. The Nanny Diaries fell to an estimated $6.4M for MGM giving the comedy just $16.5M in ten days. Kevin Bacon stumbled into eighth place with his vigilante thriller Death Sentence which bowed to an estimated $5.2M from 1,822 sites for an average of only $2,854 for Fox.

Jet Li and Jason Statham followed in ninth with War which crumbled in its sophomore frame to an estimated $5.1M giving Lionsgate $18M in ten days. Paramount's fairy tale adventure Stardust rounded out the top ten with an estimated $3.9M for a $31.9M total.

Three films dropped out of the top ten over the weekend. The Simpsons Movie laughed up an estimated $3.5M and boosted its sensational domestic haul to $178.4M on its way to what should be a final tally of about $185M. Overseas, the Fox smash broke through the $300M barrier this weekend and hopes to see its global gross surge past $500M.

New Line's hit musical Hairspray posted another strong performance banking an estimated $3.5M over four days to raise its cume to $112.3M. A final domestic gross of at least $120M seems likely. Not faring well was the Nicole Kidman sci-fi thriller The Invasion which tumbled down to an estimated $1.5M for a poor $14.1M total after 18 days. Paramount should end up snatching a miserable $16M.

The top ten films grossed an estimated $112.7M over four days (a new Labor Day weekend record) which was up 26% from last year when Invincible remained in first place with $15.4M in its second session; and up 23% from 2005 when Transporter 2 opened in the top spot with a then-record $20.1M.

Author: Gitesh Pandya, www.BoxOfficeGuru.com

Related Items

Movie:	The Invasion
	Superbad
	Mr. Bean's Holiday
	Rush Hour 3
	Hairspray
	The Nanny Diaries
	The Bourne Ultimatum
	Balls of Fury
	War
	The Simpsons Movie
	Death Sentence

(1-20 of 75 posts) | Reply

Drunken Mastermind writes:
on Sep 03 2007 02:30 PM

Well,this shows just torture porn is STILL a popular genre,despite what most RT'ers think(god dammit!)

(Reply to this)

Bruce Campbell writes:
on Sep 03 2007 02:52 PM

How is Halloween torture porn?

(Reply to this)

Horror Lover writes:
on Sep 03 2007 03:03 PM

I've always thought Halloween was a slasher.

(Reply to this)

Cicatriz writes:
on Sep 03 2007 03:29 PM

Halloween is holidaycore

(Reply to this)

neoes writes:
on Sep 03 2007 03:48 PM

its a slasher flick not a torture movie...maybe the slasher movies still have life

(Reply to this)

Bruce Campbell writes:
on Sep 03 2007 04:09 PM

Which will mean another sequal to Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Steet, Child's Play, Hellraiser, etc.

(Reply to this)

dylan21484nj writes:
on Sep 03 2007 04:21 PM

well the original Halloween can't really be considered a slasher film although most people refer to it as one. Halloween itself was very bloodless and relied more on building suspense and jack-in-the-box scares. but it spawned countless imitators that upped the ante with more and more blood and gore, so Halloween is lumped in with them because of the role it played in inspiring those imitators. plus, it did so well in scaring people that i think that a lot of people have the movie built up in their heads as being a lot more bloody and gruesome than it really is.

i do think that Zombie's Halloween does fall in the slasher genre because of how brutal and bloody the kills are. it's certainly not torture porn, Michael Myers doesn't slowly torture his victims.

(Reply to this)

sickofitall writes:
on Sep 03 2007 04:30 PM

Ha ha its number 1 take that haters ahhhhhh are you mad because underdog never made it to number 1.go back to your mothers basement and watch you care bears movie and leave Halloween alone haters.

(Reply to this)

tkl0085 writes:
on Sep 03 2007 04:45 PM

eat a pile of #@*% all you haters! Box office record! Not only did the remake see the light of day against your wishes, but you were all proven wrong again with these box office numbers! I love it!

(Reply to this)

horrorfan666 writes:
on Sep 03 2007 04:53 PM

yeeeaaaahhhhh halloween.

(Reply to this)

SIRxxxTMG writes:
on Sep 03 2007 06:22 PM

And undeserving too!!

(Reply to this)

Boss Fan writes:
on Sep 03 2007 06:29 PM

Yeah. You 3losers who like bad, stupid movies were vindicated this weekend. Congrats! It%u2019s not as if a crappy movie hasn't made a sh**load of money before. This means nothing other than what we already know; which is there are a bunch of geeks out there who still spend money on recycled junk like this (thanks kids!). Yeah, big surprise there. And who didn't expect this movie to make money?! Hater or not, all you had to do was look at the grosses of the predecessors to see this film would do well. Maybe it passed expectations, but it was a forgone conclusion this film would be number one. It%u2019s not like you guys had some grass roots campaign of horror-geeks that helped power a struggling little film to the top of the charts, so stop jerking yourselves off already.

(Reply to this)

SIRxxxTMG writes:
on Sep 03 2007 06:31 PM

And undeserving too!!

(Reply to this)

Bruce Campbell writes:
on Sep 03 2007 06:42 PM

Struggling?

It's a horror blockbuster.

(Reply to this)

DaLynchMob79 writes:
on Sep 03 2007 06:51 PM

more than likely fart sniffers like Boss Fan haven't even seen the movie. Its quite watchable and an extremely enjoyable popcorn flick.

I will say that Malcolm McDowell mails in his performance though. I didn't care for his version of Loomis....

(Reply to this)

primetime21335 writes:
on Sep 03 2007 06:59 PM

I was very happy with the film. I am also pleased it did well.

(Reply to this)

taytot828 writes:
on Sep 03 2007 07:16 PM

give rob zombie some credit.

(Reply to this)

MPSolo writes:
on Sep 03 2007 07:21 PM

Hey, anyone know if Ratatouille crossed the $200M mark this weekend? It needed less than $1M to hit.

(Reply to this)

Boss Fan writes:
on Sep 03 2007 08:10 PM

In reply to this comment (#1095514)
Im not the smug a**hole who came on here telling everyone who didn't like this movie, or thought it looked like crap, to "eat a pile of s**t." Just givin' some back.

(Reply to this)

CoUcH ToMaToE DoUgIe writes:
on Sep 03 2007 08:25 PM

In reply to this comment (#1095585)
MPSolo, well the best Disney rodent ever, sorry mickey, probably did

pass 200 million mark. it needed less than 1 million like you said and it made 1.2

million last week in a non holiday weekend, so i would be shocked if it didn't. oh,

and is it just me but WHAT THE HELL HAS HAPPENED TO NICOLE KINDMAN'S CAREER???! The

invasion was Halle berry bad but hey its funny how three oscar award winning actresses

{Halle Berry, Hilary Swank, and Nicole kidman} have each made movies this year {perfect

stranger, the reaping, and the invasion)- respectively} at rotten tomato rotten rating

of 20 % or lower! jeez, if you win an oscar, who calls the grim reaper and steal these

actresses' ability to analyze what a quality film looks like! hey, i guess they need the

money;)

(Reply to this)