Halloween Ends‘ opening night box office is higher than last year’s Halloween Kills. Now playing in theaters everywhere and streaming on Peacock, Halloween Ends is the final installment in director David Gordon Green’s H40 trilogy, which commenced in 2018 with Halloween, a direct sequel to John Carpenter’s original 1978 film that disregarded all subsequent sequels. The reboot trilogy follows a PTSD-riddled Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her family as they confront the embodiment of evil that is Michael Myers.
Curtis returns to lead the Halloween Ends cast as the iconic screen queen alongside Andi Matichak, Will Patton, Kyle Richards, and Omar Dorsey, who also reprise their roles from previous films. Set four years after Halloween Kills, the threequel finds Laurie living in peace with her granddaughter before she is forced to confront her traumatic past when a local teen, Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell), is accused of killing a child he babysits. As the title suggests, the threequel is expected to be the final face-off between Laurie and Michael. While critics largely consider Halloween Ends an unsatisfying conclusion to the trilogy and, possibly, the franchise at large, it remains to be seen what audiences think of the horror threequel.
Now, the first box office numbers for Halloween Ends are in. Per Variety, the slasher film opened to $5.4 million at the box office in Thursday night preview showings. This is slightly higher than Halloween Kills, which had a $4.9 million opening night last year.
Halloween Ends Opening Night Is A Good Sign For Its Box Office Prospects
Halloween Ends‘ opening night is a great sign for the threequel’s box office prospects. With this strong opening, Halloween Ends should be well on the way to its projected $50-60 million opening weekend, which would also be slightly higher than its 2021 predecessor, which grossed $49 million during its opening weekend. The threequel is expected to really separate itself over the course of its domestic run with a $130 million total gross, $40 million more than what Halloween Kills earned last year.
All in all, Halloween Ends is off to a good start at the box office. If it achieves its projected $50 million opening weekend, it will be the first release to do so since Thor: Love and Thunder. With only a $20 million production budget, the slasher film will be in the black a lot sooner than other big-budget blockbusters, though how it will compare to the recent horror hit Smile is yet to be seen. Overall, Universal and Blumhouse have made a killing off its H40 trilogy. If Halloween Ends‘ box office plays out as expected, it’s unlikely this is truly the end of the horror franchise.
