Michael Myers has been terrorizing the streets since 1978. The original Halloween film by John Carpenter is a classic that thrust the slasher-horror genre into the commercial spotlight. The success of Halloween led to nine sequels. The eleventh installment in the franchise decided to retcon Michael's history, erasing the nine movies that came out after the original. Simply titled Halloween, the soft reboot is a direct sequel to the original film, and it is tearing up the box office.
As reported by Billboard, Halloween pulled in $33.3 million from 3,928 theaters. Projections have the film amassing $80 million by the close of the weekend, which would place Halloween in a tie for the best October movie opening weekend. The record of $80 million was just set two weeks ago by Venom. October is known for being a slow month at the box office, but Venom and Halloween helped breathe life into the dormant sales.
Halloween earned the second-best opening of all time for an R-rated horror movie, falling behind last year's It which opened to $123.4 million. Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper's A Star Is Born is projected to finally beat out Venom for the first week, earning $19 million to Venom's $18 million. Venom and A Star Is Born will have earned $171 million and $126 million, respectively, by the close of the weekend.
