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'Halloween Ends' projected to kill it at the box office with very alive $50 million opening weekend
The legacy sequel trilogy will go out with a bang in just a few days.
A lot of people want to see the final battle between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers on the big screen. Variety reports that Halloween Ends is projected to land this weekend with an opening box office somewhere between $50 and $55 million, putting it ahead of last year's Halloween Kills and making it the first film since Thor: Love and Thunder arrived in July to land a $50 million-plus first weekend.
That'd be a very impressive number for a horror film to hit, and it's made even more impressive by the film's hybrid release model which will see it land on Peacock the same day that it hits theaters. Universal Pictures also deployed that strategy for Kills last October, and that film still opened to a $49 million opening weekend. With its trilogy-capping story and the promise of Jamie Lee Curtis' final performance as Laurie Strode, it makes sense that Ends is on track to top its predecessor. Plus, as Variety points out, Halloween Kills is the only nationwide release on this weekend's slate of new films, which gives it priority in terms of the promotional cycle and in terms of premium theatrical formats which bring in more box office dollars.
Set four years after Halloween Kills (which continued the Halloween night of 2018 started by Halloween four years ago), Halloween Ends will follow Laurie as she tries to move on with her life after Michael Myers murdered her daughter (Judy Greer) and then disappeared from Haddonfield, seemingly forever. Things never stay quiet in that town for long, though, and just when Laurie and her granddaughter Alison (Andi Matichak) are starting to get comfortable, Michael turns up again, setting up a last stand that might end with both slasher and final girl dead.
The Halloween franchise was revitalized in 2018 when director David Gordon Green helmed the first legacy sequel starring Curtis, with original director John Carpenter back on board as composer. The film opened to critical acclaim and a total box office haul of more than $250 million, launching two more sequels and Curtis' swan song as a character she's played off and on since 1978. Halloween Ends is almost certainly the last time we'll see her play the Laurie Strode role, but whether or not its title will prove final as the last installment in the saga of Michael Myers remains to be seen.
Halloween Ends is in theaters and streaming on Peacock this Friday.
