'Halloween' Slashes Box Office Records, Has Biggest Opening Weekend For A Slasher Film

Halloween has one more victim to add to its body count: box office records. The long-awaited horror sequel made a killing at the box office in its opening weekend, raking in $77.5 million in 3,928 locations. That means director David Gordon Green's sequel/reboot is not just the highest-grossing film in the decades-spanning Halloween franchise, but the biggest opening for a slasher movie ever, adjusted for inflation.

Variety reports that Gordon Green's Halloween shattered the franchise opening record, previously held by the 2007 Rob Zombie reboot ($26 million), and is already the biggest-grossing Halloween movie of all time.

The highest-grossing Halloween movie until now was, again, the Zombie reboot, which raked in $58.2 million overall — with the 2018 Halloween set to far overshoot that after clocking $77.5 million in three days of domestic release. Coupled with Halloween's $14.3 million international opening gross, the slasher movie made a total $91.8 million worldwide.

But that's not the only record that Halloween is slashing to pieces. Adjusted for inflation, Halloween's $77.5 million debut weekend beats out the previous slasher movie record holder, Scream 2, whose $33 million launch in 1997 would be $65 million today, according to Forbes. It's also the biggest Blumhouse debut, beating out Paranormal Activity 3 ($52.5 million), and according to Forbes "is the fourth-biggest horror movie/scary movie launch ever (sans inflation) behind only It ($123m), Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ($150m) and Jurassic World ($208m)."

In other records, Halloween notched the No. 2 spot. Halloween had the second-best start for an R-rated horror film after last year's It, and still maintains the second-highest October debut after Venom took that record earlier this month.

Meanwhile, Deadline reports that Venom's deal with the devil has worked out for the comic book movie's international box office, passing the $290.7 million mark this weekend, with a global total of $461.2 million  — with China and Japan still set to let the devil into its markets.

A Star is Born nabbed the No. 2 international spot, bringing its international gross to $74.7 million and shooting past the $200 million mark for its total worldwide tally.

In the indie realm, Jonah Hill's directorial debut Mid90s is setting its own little records, giving A24 two of the year's three best opening-frame per-theater averages to date, according to Deadline. The coming-of-age drama grossed $249,500 during the weekend for a $62,375 per-screen average, with the studio planning to expand next weekend after the strong opening.

Following behind Mid90s in the indie circuit are Melissa McCarthy's Can You Ever Forgive Me? which raked in $150,000 in five locations, and Paul Dano's directorial debut Wildlife, which opened to $105,614 in four locations.