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‘The Martian’ Holds No. 1 Box Office Spot for Halloween Weekend

Rounding out the top five was the Bradley Cooper drama “Burnt” with a dismal $5 million.

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Halloween weekend was so traditionally poor at the box office, it was downright scary. The verdict on Goosebumps will be out for a while – it doesn’t hit European theaters until January and February. Its domestic total has reached $156 million, and an even stronger global total of $217.6 million. “If you’re at a Halloween party, you’re not going to the movies”.

“It was a tough weekend and we were hoping for more”. Sony’s “Spectre”, which has opened in a few worldwide markets, scored the biggest United Kingdom debut ever with $63.8 million over the weekend.

Hotel Transylvania 2 was the only movie on the up this week as it jumped a single place from five to number four. Both were described by the studios that backed them as “passion projects” for the actors and filmmakers involved, and each shows how hard it will be to get these kinds of pictures made at a time when it’s hard for anything not featuring a superhero to draw a crowd. Cooper, however, won’t be singed for too long as he has Joy, his latest teaming with director David O. Russell and Jennifer Lawrence, arriving in December. “The Martian” captured first place with $11.4 million. It earned just $901,000.

The two weeks of debuts have also been populated mainly by poorly reviewed movies with the exception of the acclaimed but much criticized “Steve Jobs”.

To be fair, the new film Our Brand is Crisis starts from a challenging position: Inspired by a documentary of the same name, the film is a political comedy about what happens when American political strategists apply their talents to a presidential election in Bolivia.

And if you’re still not convinced, here’s a stat – this is the worst weekend at the box office this year by total ticket sales. Only “The Martian” and “Bridge of Spies” have found significant riches by pitching their films at this demographic, while the likes of “Steve Jobs”, “Truth”, and “The Walk” have all competed against each other with little to show for it.

To no one’s surprise, industry-wide totals were far below those of last weekend and a year ago. Who is going to grow a conscience and who is going to say enough money is enough money.

Paramount Pictures’ Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypsegrossed just $NZD 2.6 million on 1,509 screens. This not only comes off as disrespectful, it avoids giving the audience valuable contextual information about the actual race – we have no idea what’s at stake, or what the candidates really believe.

Thus far, the trial has yielded mixed results.

October 2015 might as well be known as the month Hollywood flopped. I don’t think this can be looked at as a failure from this perspective as I would think a second, and possibly earlier, attempt next year may be a smart move.

In expansion, A24’s Room brought in $269,500 from 49 theaters. If it wants to capitalize on awards season it may need to get a rerelease. It was also a bad weekend for distribution experiments.

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“Bridge Of Spies”, a reality-based Steven Spielberg movie starring Tom Hanks, was third, with $8 million in receipts. It’s now officially the highest-grossing live-action Jack Black film since Tropic Thunder in 2008. Outwardly, however, Netflix seemed sanguine about paying $12 million for a child soldier drama without commercial appeal. In Sweden it added another 24.95 million krone ($2.97 million USD), 30% over the opening of Skyfall. After three weeks, the book series which was adapted for the big screen has earned over $57 million.

Matt Damon in'The Martina