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It's as Hot as Halloween Out There

Mon., Sep. 3, 2007 1:57 PM PDT by Joal Ryan

Ah, air conditioning...

With temperatures hitting 90 or more across most of the nation, movie theaters were the place to be on Labor Day, helping Hollywood establish a new box-office record for the holiday.

The weekend's top 12 movies, led by the Rob Zombie-directed Halloween remake, combined to gross $120 million Friday-Monday, up 22 percent from last year's end-of-summer blowout, Exhibitor Relations Co. estimated.

Booming Labor Day business pushed the overall summer 2007 box office past $4 billion—another record, Exhibitor Relations said.

Zombie's Halloween was the biggest of the weekend bunch, scaring up $31 million through Monday. Its Friday-Sunday take of $26.5 million was the most ever taken in during an opening weekend by one of Michael Myers' mad sprees, topping 1998's Halloween: H20 ($16.2 million).

While the latest Halloween stats were impressive, the film will have to impress for quite a while to match John Carpenter's 1978 original. Produced for about $325,000, the '78 Halloween made $47 million in a time when movie tickets cost, on average, $2 and change. It continues to stand as one of the most successful independent movies ever released.

Elsewhere, Superbad (second place, $12.5 million Friday-Sunday; $15.6 million Friday- Monday) lost its two-week hold on the number one spot, but all was not lost for the comedy hit, which hit $92.4 million overall.

The new Ping-Pong movie Balls of Fury (third place, $11.3 million Friday-Sunday; $14.3 million Friday-Monday), meanwhile, distinguished itself as arguably the biggest table-tennis flick of all time, unless you count Forrest Gump, which was really more of a movie with table tennis scenes in it.

The revenge thriller Death Sentence, the weekend's other major new release, helped Kevin Bacon pull a Charles Bronson but didn't do much at the box office—$4.2 million Friday-Sunday; $5.2 million Friday-Monday.

Elsewhere, The Bourne Ultimatum (fourth place, $10.3 million Friday-Sunday; $13.2 million Friday-Monday) became the eighth movie this year to top $200 million overall.

Falling out of the top 10 were The Simpsons Movie ($2.8 million Friday-Sunday; $3.5 million Friday-Monday; $178.4 million overall), after an animated five-week run; Hairspray ($2.7 million Friday-Sunday; $3.3 million Friday-Monday; $112.1 million overall), after a tuneful six-week run; and Nicole Kidman's The Invasion ($1.1 million Friday-Sunday; $1.5 million Friday-Monday; $14.1 million overall), after a forgettable two-week stay.

In limited release, Ryan Reynolds' own trilogy of terror, The Nines, outdid Halloween, comparatively, taking in $28,617 from Friday-Monday at just two theaters, for a weekend-best per-screen average of $14,309.

Here's a rundown of the top 10 films based on Friday-Sunday estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations: