‘Venom: The Last Dance’ Rules Halloween, ‘Here’ Has $475K Previews – Box Office

People weren’t just trick or treating, parading or creating an insane traffic jam grid block between Santa Monica Blvd and Hollywood, they actually went to the movies on Halloween with the top ten titles seeing an average 46% spike in business yesterday over Wednesday.

Sony’s Venom: The Last Dance ruled Halloween with $2.8M, +12%, for a first week of $63.9M. The Kelly Marcel directed Tom Hardy starring Marvel prequel will hopefully do $20M in weekend 2 after misfiring stateside with the trilogy’s lowest start of $51M. However, the Culver City lot also had the Miramax release of the Robert Zemeckis-Tom Hanks-Robin Wright Forrest Gump reunion, Here, which posted $475K in previews from shows that began at 2PM at 2,402 locations. That’s close to the same preview cash that Focus Features’ Conclave and A24’s We Live In Time have posted as of late (those two movies doing $500K a piece in their Thursdays). The hope is that this $50M drama, which shows generations of families on the same plot of land at a fixed camera angle, will open to $7M, maybe more if older sophisticated audiences find it, this despite awful reviews on Rotten Tomatoes of 38%. The pic is a distribution deal for Sony who’ve released such Hanks movies in recent years, A Man Called Otto and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.

Tracking firm Quorum gives props to Sony for having the audacity to release a movie just before the election. Some filmmakers have steered clear of that, in particular comedies. Despite the reviews on Here, awareness for the film jumped from 28% to 37%, however, interest remains low.

Here is the only major studio wide release this weekend. Jill Goldsmith has the indie preview for you.

The week and Halloween chart:

1.) Venom: The Last Dance (Sony) 4,131 theaters, Thursday $2.8M (+12%), Wk $63.9M/Wk 1

2.) Smile 2 (Par) 3,624 (+5) theaters, Thursday $1.7M (+78%), Wk $14.6M, Total $45.8M/Wk 2

3.) Conclave (Foc) 1,753 theaters, Thu $767K (+6%), Wk $9.9M/Wk 1

4.) The Wild Robot (Uni) 3,427 (-402) theaters, Thu $535K (+10%), Wk $9.1M, Total $113.9M/Wk 5

5.) Terrifier 3 (Cine) 2,751 (-42) theaters, Thu $1.1M (+104%), Wk $7.6M, Total $47.2M/Wk 3