Without much in the way of competition, Halloween will easily hold onto first over the weekend before its titular holiday. The only real new wide release is Hunter Killer, a submarine thriller starring Gerard Butler that’s looking like it may struggle to top $6 million. Meanwhile, Amazon opens their highly anticipated Suspiria remake in 2 locations, while A24 is expanding mid90s into a massive 1,206 locations.

Halloween should be targeting a drop of around 60% this weekend, based on franchise history and the performance of recent titles such as Venom. Anything much more would be a bit worrisome, but not altogether disastrous considering the $15 million slasher has already made over $90 million domestically.

Two films that strongly resemble things shot in the 90s are hitting theaters this weekend, but for very different reasons; both Hunter Killer and mid90s are going nationwide in around 2,700 and 1,200 theaters respectively. This seems extremely wide for mid90s, especially considering A24’s historical tendency to jump the gun on nationwide releases. Just earlier this summer, Eighth Grade expanded into just under 1,100 locations and took in about $2.8 million – despite a plethora of Sundance hype and glowing reviews. Good Time opened in 721 locations back in August of 2017, but brought in a disastrous $591K – averaging just $806 per location. Because of this, the decision to go so wide certainly seems like a poor one. Not only are reviews decidedly less impressive at just 78%, but the level of hype hasn’t been anywhere near others like Eighth Grade or The Disaster Artist. Because of this, a per theater average under $1,000 wouldn’t be at all surprising.

Hunter Killer, on the other hand, attempts to be counter programming towards older male audiences. Critics have unsurprisingly given the film very poor reviews, currently sitting at a 31%. Lionsgate seems to understand the limited commercial potential, and has pushed the film very heavily in the days leading up to release, through a plethora of promos on various ticketing websites. Among comprable titles, there’s not much in the way of contemporary submarine titles – the last one of note was Phantom back in 2013, which opened in over 1,000 locations with an almost impressively bad $500K. Obviously Hunter won’t be anywhere near that low, but it’s hard to see it climbing past single digits.

Also opening is Johnny English Strikes Again, a franchise whose domestic releases are little more than a formality; the last installment, released in 2011, made just $8 million domestic against a $160 million worldwide take. Because of this, it’s hard to imagine it making much of a dent this weekend.

Among holdovers, A Star Is Born will spend its fourth weekend in second place, while Venom might stabilize a bit more thanks to a lack of meaningful newcomers.

Predictions

Halloween – $31 million A Star Is Born – $15 million Venom – $11 million Hunter Killer – $6 million Goosebumps 2 – $5.9 million

Johnny English Strikes Again – $1.9 million

mid90s – $1.1 million