Halloween Kills lives up to its name and The Last Duel flops at the weekend box office

Audiences made the predictable choice between David Gordon Green's big-name horror sequel and Ridley Scott's period drama

By Sam Barsanti  |  October 17, 2021 | 9:01pm
Aux News Halloween Kills
Halloween Kills lives up to its name and The Last Duel flops at the weekend box office
The Last Duel Photo: 20th Century Studios

It continues to be a good October for new release movies at the box office (and not much else), first with Venom: Let There Be Carnage breaking the pandemic record (and alllmost breaking the pre-pandemic record for an October release), then with No Time To Die making a healthy amount of money even as it fell short of lofty expectations. Now, David Gordon Green’s Halloween Kills has followed James Bond’s lead by making a respectable amount of money even if it’s not going in the record books.

Halloween Kills, a movie that tries to have its cake and it eat it too when it comes to Michael Myers’ inexplicable immortality, made $50 million this weekend—enough to put it in first place, well ahead of No Time To Die. That success is noteworthy because Halloween Kills is available on Peacock, so the streaming option didn’t hurt it too bad. We’ll see how it works out next weekend, though, since Black Widow opened strong despite being on Disney+ and then fell off.

As for Daniel Craig’s final Bond movie, it fell more than 50 percent in its second week, making $24 million and taking it to a total of $99 million. That puts No Time To Die on about the same track as third-place finisher Venom 2, which also dropped about 50 percent in its third weekend and made $16 million.

We predicted last week that Venom: Let There Be Carnage would have a difficult journey getting to $200 million, and barring some kind of COVID miracle or renewed Halloween interest as the actual day approaches, it seems like none of these movies will be able to accomplish what Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings. It came in sixth this weekend, adding $3.5 million to its $218 million haul.

The last big story from the top 10, other than Free Guy hanging on for its 10th week in the top 10 (and with only $120 million to show for it), is that Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel opened at only $4.8 million. The takeaway there has less to do with The Last Duel and more to do with the fact that the movie studios should know that—ever since theaters in the U.S. started reopening—it has been exceedingly rare for more than one movie to make good money at a time.

It was either going to be Halloween Kills or The Last Duel, and despite the prospect of seeing so many famous people in capes, Michael Myers was always going to win that fight. Maybe Halloween Kills will have a Black Widow-style streaming collapse next week and everyone who saw Halloween Kills this weekend will see The Last Duel next weekend, but that seems unlikely.

The full top 10 from this weekend is below. For a more detailed breakdown of the numbers involved, head to Box Office Mojo.

 
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