\n\tHalloween is shaping up to be scarier than expected for Hollywood and its exhibition partners, but not in a good way.<\/p>\n
\n\tDomestic box office<\/a> revenue for October 2025 is expected to come in at roughly $425 million \u2014 the worst showing in 27 years, according to Comscore. This excludes October 2020, the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic, when revenue was a mere $55 million, powered by Christopher Nolan\u2019s Tenet.<\/p>\n \n\tOtherwise, the last time October was this low was 1997, when combined ticket sales were $385.2 million, not adjusted for inflation. In 1998, revenue jumped to $455.6 million before crossing $600 million for the first time a year later in 1999. The new millennium brought steady gains, save for a few bumps in the road<\/a>, before the pandemic hit.<\/p>\n \n\tProgramming October \u2014 aside from Halloween-themed releases \u2014 was historically a chance for studios and indie distributors to take breathers following the summer blockbuster season and to prepare for the year-end holidays. It\u2019s also when they begin to launch their award films.<\/p>\n \n\tBut as the calendar grew more crowded around the year-end holidays, studios started relying on off-peak months and began opening higher-profile films in October. This culminated with a record $832.8 million showing in 2018, when Sony\u2019s superhero pic Venom grossed $190 million in October alone, followed by awards contender A Star Is Born ($153.1 million) and the hit reboot of Halloween ($137.9 million).<\/p>\n \n\tWhat went so wrong this time? It was a perfect storm of not enough product due to the ongoing production delays leftover from the labor strikes, a horrible August and a relatively weak September (often, carryover titles account for a large chunk of October revenue).<\/p>\n \n\tThe harder truth to bear: Many October titles simply didn\u2019t resonate with general audiences. Disney\u2019s long-awaited Tron: Ares is the month\u2019s top earner, but has only brought in $63.4 million domestically to date. Excluding 2020, that\u2019s the lowest showing for the top film launching in October since DreamWorks SKG\u2019s The Wallace & Gromit Movie two decades ago in 2005.<\/p>\n \n\tAnother major miss was Dwayne Johnson starrer The Smashing Machine. Director Benny Safdie and specialty distributor A24\u2019s R-rated drama had major awards and box ambitions, yet has earned a scant $11.4 million since its domestic debut over the Oct. 5-7 weekend and $19.7 million globally, a near-career worst for Johnson (admittedly, he viewed Smashing Machine as a chance to flex his acting muscle and make his first run at an Oscar).<\/p>\n \n\tIf it weren\u2019t for The Official Release Party of a Showgirl, Taylor Swift<\/a>\u2018s eleventh-hour theatrical event tied to the release of her new album, things would be even worse. Billed as cinematic \u201cexperience,\u201d versus a film, it brought in $34.2 million over the Oct. 3-5 weekend, crushing Smashing Machine. Japanese anime offerings Chainsaw Man<\/a>: The Movie, which came in well ahead of expectations when topping the Oct. 24-25 weekend with $18 million, and September\u2019s Demon Slayer Infinity were also unexpected heroes.<\/p>\n \n\tFrom Sony division Crunchyroll, Chainsaw Man even came in ahead of Blumhouse and Universal holdover Black Phone 2, one of the few hits of the month. Conversely, Disney\u2019s Bruce Springsteen biographical drama Deliver Me From Nowhere sang off-key in opening to $8.9 million domestically, behind expectations.<\/p>\n \n\tOct. 23-25 was supposed to be the weekend when Warner Bros.\u2019 Mortal Kombat II opened, but the pic was pushed back to May 2026. \u201cThat left a good-sized hole and there was nothing to really pick up the slack,\u201d says Wall Street analyst Eric Handler of Roth MKM Partners.<\/p>\n \n\tComscore chief box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian says there was a lack of overall momentum following a miserable August and a weak September. \u201cNow the heat is on for early- to mid-November titles including Predator: Badlands and The Running Man to bridge the gap between this rather slow period and the holiday blockbuster corridor,\u201d he says, referring to Thanksgiving tentpoles Wicked: For Good (Nov. 21) and Zootopia 2 (Nov. 26).<\/p>\n \n\tFor years, the traditional thinking was that October was a time when moviegoers wanted a break between summer tentpoles and year-event event pics. That attitude changed when 20th Century\u2019s Taken 2 did huge business in 2013, helping to lead a then-October revenue record of $680 million.<\/p>\n \n\tThe following year, October was analyzed from every direction as a launching pad for Oscar fare that also had broad commercial appeal, after the Sandra Bullock and George Clooney space drama Gravity helped propel revenue for the month to $628 million. In 2012, revenue crossed $700 million for the first time, led by Gone Girl.<\/p>\n \n\tAnother milestone was achieved in 2018 when combined ticket sales for the fall month cleared $800 million for the first and only time at $832.8 million. The reason? Tossing out the rule book, Sony used the month to open a comic book movie, Venom. It paid off. Venom grossed $213 million domestically, including October ticket sales of $190 million. (The film\u2019s global haul was $856.1 million.)<\/p>\n \n\tWarner Bros. and DC followed suit when opening Joker in October 2019. Total ticket sales for the month came in at a combined $788.1 million, the second-best showing ever. Joker\u2019s domestic share for the month was a record $286 million, on its way to topping out at $355 million domestically and an eye-popping $1.07 billion globally.<\/p>\n \n\tAs fate would have it, the Venom franchise returned to deliver a huge post-pandemic win for theater owners when Let There Be Carnage, opening in late September 2021, racked up $190 million in October ticket sales. Total revenue for the month soared to $645 million, which remains the best showing of the post-pandemic era. Revenue slipped back to $485.1 million in 2022 \u2014 led by superhero pic Black Adam\u2014 but zoomed back up $567.7 million in 2023, thanks to Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour.<\/p>\n \n\tRevenue year-to-date continues to run ahead of last year by 3.3 percent, but the lead is too narrow for comfort, particularly considering revenue was up by 20 percent at the beginning of summer.<\/p>\n \n\tEveryone is keeping their fingers crossed that a strong November and December can help maintain that lead, so that domestic revenue for the year doesn\u2019t slip behind last year\u2019s $8.9 billion. It will be up to the Thanksgiving marquee, along with Christmas titles including James Cameron\u2019s Avatar: Fire and Ash (Dec. 19) and the next SpongeBob movie (Dec. 19) to hold down the fort. There is also potential in Christmas titles Anacondas and awards player Marty Supreme, with a cast led by Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet.<\/p>\n \n\tBut the no one is making bold predictions \u2014 even with Avatar waiting in the wings. Will there to be fiery victory or a pile of ashes? Says Dergarabedian: \u201cThere are many variables.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Halloween is shaping up to be scarier than expected for Hollywood and its exhibition partners, but not in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[5784,54089,156,409,111,139,69,6456],"class_list":{"0":"post-109575","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-box-office","9":"tag-chainsaw-man","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-taylor-swift"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}