Horror continues to dominate the fall box office with ‘Halloween Ends’ earning in three weeks for its debut, while ‘The Purge: Anarchy’ and ‘Dawn of the Dead’ are on track to finish their run next month.
‘Halloween Ends’ – the third film from John Carpenter and producer Troma Co – marks the latest in a slew of projects from the horror genre that are getting a boost from social media. The film was released on Nov. 1, and earned $1.7 million in its opening weekend, the best of the year so far, according to an average estimate from the industry trade journal Box Office Mojo. It’s a total of $11.5 million to date. And there’s still time for the film to reach $17 million in global grosses.
It’s the most recent example of how the genre has taken off thanks to the proliferation of social media. With nearly 100 million active users on Facebook, nearly 2.4 million followers on Twitter and 200 million Instagram followers, horror was a no-brainer for the likes of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to jump on, especially as movies like ‘Widows’ and ‘The Conjuring’ have seen bigger openings than any horror title to date.
But the real success of horror has become its ability to draw in audiences regardless of where they go to get their entertainment.
According to the NPD Group, horror will take a huge 41 percent share of the global box office this year, with $2.7 billion-plus in revenue expected across the next four months.
‘Halloween Ends’ is a direct sequel to the 2008 original and came out this summer.
In it, a family of four is terrorized by a group of teenagers and the local authorities who have them under surveillance when they return home to find a stranger has killed their young son.
But rather than being the usual run-of-the-mill horror film, the