Friday Estimates: Halloween Haunts the Box Office

October 31, 2015

Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse

Because Halloween is a dead zone for the box office when it lands during the weekend, it has a major effect on the box office. Therefore, it is important for box office analysts to compare weekends where the holiday lands on the same day. This is a problem, because the last time Halloween landed on a Saturday was 2009. The only film to open wide that weekend was Michael Jackson's This is It, which is in no way similar to any of the movies that opened wide this weekend. The previous similar weekend was in 1998, but while Vampires is a closer match to Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, the box office has changed too much to compare the films. We're flying blind this weekend. Fortunately, even flying blind, it is easy to make one declaration: All three wide releases bombed.

Burnt was the best of the openers, but it only managed $1.83 million on Friday. It will likely pull in just over $5 million for the weekend, which is enough to finish in the top five, but not enough to break even any time soon. Our Brand is Crisis and Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse will likely miss the Mendoza Line over the weekend. The pair opened with $1.11 million and $708,000 respectively. Crisis is on pace to become Sandra Bullock’s worst wide opening of her career with just $3 million. Scouts might get a boost tonight thanks to Halloween, but even a boost combined with its low theater count won’t save it from the Mendoza Line. Look for an opening of under $2 million and a per theater average of well below $2,000.

This leaves The Martian and Goosebumps battling for top spot with $10 million apiece, while Bridge of Spies should land in third place with between $7 million and $8 million. Meanwhile, Hotel Transylvania 2 might actually rise to fourth place with $5 million. This depends on how well Burnt does over the rest of the weekend. One thing is clear, the past two weeks have been loaded with simply awful movies. November can’t start soon enough.

Friday Box Office Chart

Filed under: Friday Estimates, Hotel Transylvania 2, Goosebumps, The Martian, Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, Bridge of Spies, Burnt, Our Brand is Crisis, Sandra Bullock