Universal/Blumhouse’s “Halloween Ends” is expected to earn the biggest opening weekend that the box office has seen in nearly three months, but producing a strong box office run through the rest of October will depend on whether word-of-mouth for this reboot trilogy capper is strong enough to get people to see it in theaters instead of on NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service.
Like its 2021 predecessor “Halloween Kills,” Universal has decided to make “Halloween Ends” a day-and-date release in theaters and streaming with the hopes that hardcore horror buffs who value the big-screen experience will encourage more casual moviegoers to check the film out either in theaters or on Peacock, which has been stalling with just 13 million paid subscribers as of Q2 2022.
“Halloween Kills” opened to $49.4 million last year and finished with a $92 million domestic total, and pre-release projections for “Ends” have it matching that opening mark with a $50 million opening.
By contrast, the first installment in this “Halloween” revival in 2018 opened to $76 million on the way to a $159 million domestic total and $255 million worldwide, buoyed before its release by strong reviews from critics praising Jamie Lee Curtis’ return to her debut role, Laurie Strode, that expanded interest beyond the series’ most devoted fans. “Kills,” on the other hand, got much poorer reviews, with critics slamming the sequel for sidelining Laurie in the hospital instead of having her take the murderous Michael Myers head-on like she did in the first film.
The marketing for “Ends” has been heavily promoting the film as a return to the head-to-head duel between Michael and Laurie, with the film’s trailer showing Curtis even standing over Michael with an icy gaze and a knife in her hand. Taking a page from “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” “Ends” has also teased this film as a final showdown more than four decades in the making, hyping Curtis’ seventh and final appearance in the series.
Given the results of day-and-date releases from Universal and Warner Bros. in the past, trackers will keep their projections conservative for “Ends.” But given the dependable turnout over the past few months for horror films like “Nope,” “The Black Phone,” “Barbarian” and “Smile,” its safe to use “Halloween Kills” as a baseline.
The biggest unknown is whether “Halloween” devotees will embrace the film’s ending, which even Curtis herself has predicted will be polarizing. “It’s going to make people very angry. It’s going to stimulate people. People are going to be agitated by it. And it is a beautiful way to end this trilogy,” Curtis told the pop culture blog The Illuminerdi when “Kills” was released last year.
While a Rotten Tomatoes score hasn’t been logged yet, an early review from Australian site The AU Review suggested that Curtis’ prediction may come true. “I can confidently say that the long-running franchise comes to a close in an entirely unexpected manner; whether that’s good or bad remains to be seen or, more correctly, heard,” wrote critic Peter Gray.
“Halloween” fans have debated the nature of Michael Myers for years; but whatever differences they may have, they have shown they can quickly come to a consensus on when a filmmaker takes the villain in a direction they don’t like. Rob Zombie’s take on “Halloween” in 2007 was widely savaged by fans as straying too far from Michael’s cold, indiscriminate killing style.
So far, reboot trilogy director David Gordon Green has only poked and prodded at exploring Michael’s nature and providing his own interpretations of the character. If he has been saving his big mark on “Halloween” until “Ends,” then the audience response to it will determine whether it can leg out as a must-see theatrical title or a front-loaded film that the mildly curious will check out on streaming.
