Between the approval of John Carpenter and the mostly positive reviews from critics coming out of its Toronto International Film Festival premiere, things seem to be going pretty well so far for David Gordon Green’s Halloween sequel, and if its strong buzz can be translated into sufficient box office returns, then yet another outing for the murderous Michael Myers will surely be in the works.
In fact, producer Jason Blum has already confirmed as much, saying he’d love to make a sequel. And though it still remains to be seen just how much money the pic will pull in, the first projections are looking pretty good. Box Office Pro has crunched the numbers to reveal that Halloween is expected to earn between $50 and $85 million on its opening weekend, off a budget of just $10 million. Apparently, that’s a conservative estimate, too, so the film may very well exceed it.
Said to be quite a far cry from what’s come before, this new sequel kicks off 40 years after the first entry into the series, by which point Myers is locked behind bars and Laurie Strode has moved on to become a grandmother. It’ll also ignore all other movies in the franchise – aside from the original, of course. That’s a bold decision, to be sure, but with interest in Halloween sky high, it seems like it was the right one.
Given that audiences and critics can’t stop raving about how the pic’s a huge return to form for the once-moribund horror franchise, it seems like this will be the must-see movie this, uh, Halloween. Personally, I can’t wait. Everything I’ve seen and read about the film makes me incredibly excited for it (especially since Carpenter himself says it’s as good as the first one) and these box office projections only add to that.
Halloween creeps into theaters nationwide on October 19th, and at this point, it’s probably safe to say that it’ll end up as one of the top horror films of the year once 2018 comes to a close.
