James Wan’s Malignant may have flopped hard at the box office, but the success of A Quiet Place Part II and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It showed that blockbuster horror properties could thrive during the pandemic era, with audiences turning up in their numbers to see the respective sequels.
Universal seemingly neutered any chances Halloween Kills had of living up to its commercial potential when it was announced the middle chapter in David Gordon Green’s trilogy would debut on Peacock the same day it hit theaters, but that might not be the case.
As per Variety, Halloween Kills is on track for a first frame of $35-40 million. While that’s way behind its predecessor’s $77 million haul, COVID-19 and a hybrid release were always going to see those numbers drop significantly. It’ll be interesting to see how much of an uptick in subscribers Peacock experiences over the weekend, when it isn’t regarded as one of the top tier platforms on offer.
Decent news for Halloween Kills, then, but the prognosis is fairly dire for Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel. Titles aimed squarely at older audiences have struggled greatly during the last eighteen months, so an R-rated medieval drama set in 14th Century France was always going to be a tough sell. Despite the star-studded cast, the movie is looking at $15 million tops over the three days.
