People weren’t just trick-or-treating, parading or creating an insane traffic jam grid block between Santa Monica Boulevard and Hollywood on Halloween — they actually went to the movies on Halloween: The top 10 titles saw an average 46% spike in business over Wednesday.
Sony’s Venom: The Last Dance ruled Halloween with $2.8M, +12%, for a first week of $63.9M. The Kelly Marcel-directed Marvel prequel starring Tom Hardy hopefully will do $20M in Weekend 2 after misfiring stateside with the trilogy’s lowest start of $51M. However, the Culver City lot also had the Miramax release of the Robert Zemeckis-Tom Hanks-Robin Wright Forrest Gump reunion Here, which posted $475K in previews from shows that began at 2 p.m. at 2,402 locations. That’s close to the same preview cash that Focus Features’ Conclave and A24’s We Live in Time have posted of late, with both doing $500K in their Thursdays. The hope is that this $50M drama, which shows generations of families on the same plot of land at a fixed camera angle, will open to $7M, maybe more if older sophisticated audiences find it — this despite awful reviews on Rotten Tomatoes of 38%. The pic is a distribution deal for Sony, which released such Hanks movies in recent years as A Man Called Otto and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.
Tracking firm Quorum gives props to Sony for having the audacity to release a movie just before the election. Some filmmakers have steered clear of that, with comedies in particular. Despite the poor reviews on Here, awareness for the film jumped from 28% to 37%, but interest remains low.
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Here is the only major studio wide release this weekend. Jill Goldsmith has the indie preview for you later Friday.
The week and Halloween chart:
1) Venom: The Last Dance (Sony) 4,131 theaters, Thursday $2.8M (+12%), Wk $63.9M/Wk 1
2) Smile 2 (Par) 3,624 (+5) theaters, Thursday $1.7M (+78%), Wk $14.6M, Total $45.8M/Wk 2
3) Conclave (Foc) 1,753 theaters, Thu $767K (+6%), Wk $9.9M/Wk 1
4) The Wild Robot (Uni) 3,427 (-402) theaters, Thu $535K (+10%), Wk $9.1M, Total $113.9M/Wk 5
5) Terrifier 3 (Cine) 2,751 (-42) theaters, Thu $1.1M (+104%), Wk $7.6M, Total $47.2M/Wk 3