“No Time To Die’s” reign atop the box office came to an end after one weekend as “Halloween Kills” debuted to $50.4 million while simultaneously releasing on Peacock Premium. It added another $5,540,000 internationally, making its worldwide haul in its debut weekend $55,890,000. Its predecessor, “Halloween” (2018), made $76,221,545 in its debut weekend but also didn’t have a streaming option to compete with. “Halloween Kills” also had the second-highest domestic debut in the entire franchise, only behind its 2018 predecessor (figure listed above.)
Daniel Craig’s farewell to James Bond, “No Time To Die,” dropped 56% in its second weekend and made a little less than half of “Halloween Kill’s” haul ($24,298,923), but is ever-so-close to hitting the $100 million mark with $99,509,477 domestically in two weekends. Its worldwide total is already at $447,809,477 and should have no trouble catching “Godzilla vs. Kong” (roughly $20 million) for the fifth highest-grossing film of 2021.
“The Last Duel” featured an all-star cast: Jodie Comer, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Adam Driver, but was only able to make $4,820,000 despite having a wide release and playing in 3,065 theatres. It made a comparable The reported budget from Variety was over $100 million, so let’s hope that Ridley Scott’s medieval epic can recoup that with some legs. Scott also has another film coming this fall, “House of Gucci,” and it will be interesting to see if that suffers the same fate.
“Bergman Island” also made its limited debut. While only playing in 115 theatres in the United States, it made $55,000. Considering the limited scope of the film, that’s an impressive haul. Perhaps some of the credit should go to the word of mouth coming out of Cannes Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. Two other indie films came out as well: “Honsla Rakh” and “Most Eligible Bachelor.” The former made $706,000 in only 100 theatres while the latter made $470,000 in 195 theatres. They likely won’t be found at your local AMC, but both of them were art-house cinema successes this weekend.
“Dune” has its domestic release on October 22, while “The French Dispatch” will have a limited opening before expanding the following week. The former will be an especially interesting film to watch in terms of box office, as Denis Villeneuve’s “Blade Runner 2049” was a notable box office failure (despite having rave reviews.) Hopefully, “Dune” can be closer to “Arrival” in terms of box office (over $203 million grossed worldwide) despite releasing on HBO Max simultaneously.
