Halloween not as Scary as Predicted

November 1, 2004

With four of the films in the top five beating expectations, this Halloween wasn't as bad as predicted. It was still down about 5.0% from last weekend and 1.5% from last year, but that's not as bad as it could have been. At first glance that's not too bad, however, last year Halloween was on a Friday and there were no new wide releases, which undoubtedly lead to last year under-performing.

The Grudge held up better than expected with $21.8 million, pushing its total box office to $70 million so far. Reaching the $100 million club should be no problem as the film will come close enough for Sony to give it a little extra push before the end of its run.

Ray not only beat expectations earning $20.0 million, it just missed the $10,000 per theatre mark by $11. Reviews improved from before the weekend and that bodes well for the films legs, and its chances for Oscar glory.

On the other hand, the reviews for Saw dip a little. But films like this are nearly immune to criticism, as its $18.3 million debut will attest to. However, even with Halloween the film could only manage an internal multiplier of 2.69 and making far past $50 million is probably not in the future for this flick.

Shark Tale was beat up by Halloween as it lost an estimated $1 million from its Sunday box office because of Trick or Treating. Still, the film made $7.5 million to push its running total to $146.9 million, enough to climb above I, Robot on yearly charts.

Shall We Dance? is showing an unexpected long pair of legs. In its third weekend of release the film lost only 27% of its weekly take to land at $6.3 million.


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Filed under: Shark Tale, The Grudge, Ray, Shall We Dance?, Saw