This ... isn't Sparta. It's a fifth-place opening.

Gerard Butler's "Hunter Killer" was left fighting in the shade while four returning films stole the box office spotlight in the weekend before Halloween.

Despite an A- CinemaScore from polled moviegoers, and very high audience scores vs. critic scores, "Hunter Killer" had to settle for No. 5 on the domestic box office chart with $6,650,000.

Fittingly, the top movie was "Halloween," itself -- picking up $32,045,000 in its second weekend, which is several million more than the next two films on the chart combined.

Blumhouse

"Hunter Killer" was killed by the same devilish trio that dominated last week, and in the same order -- "Halloween," "A Star Is Born," and "Venom." On top of that, "Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween" also beat "Hunter Killer," with the "Goosebumps" sequel taking fourth place.

"A Star Is Born" once again topped "Venom," even though it was the other way around when they debuted together.

But "Venom" is winning the global war -- picking up $321M so far at the foreign box office, on top of its $187M domestic tally, for a total of $508,382,314 so far. "A Star Is Born" just cracked $100M at the foreign box office, but its nearly $150M domestic tally now puts it at $253.3M.

"Halloween" opened last weekend to No. 1 by a lot, and it kept the position this week -- even with a drop of 58 percent. That's not that bad.

It's not even really THAT bad for "Hunter Killer" to open in fifth, considering it played in 2,728 theaters, vs. about 1,000 more theaters each for the top four. ("Goosebumps 2" got a bump of 202 extra theaters this week, to pick up more pre-Halloween family visits, and that helped.)

Then again, that $6.65 million domestic opening is lower than the original estimates for "Hunter Killer," which reportedly cost around $40M to make, with Gerard Butler picking up about $10M on his own.

But considering the positive audience reactions, "Hunter Killer" -- which also stars Gary Oldman, Common, Michael Nyqvist, and Linda Cardellini  -- should at least pick up more interest on Digital/DVD/On Demand. And maybe also at the foreign box office.

In other news, Jonah Hill's feature directorial debut "Mid90s" just scraped into the Top 10 despite only opening in 1,206 theaters.

Here are the top 10 weekend estimates for October 26-28:

1. "Halloween" - $32,045,000
2. "A Star Is Born" - $14,145,000
3. "Venom" - $10,800,000
4. "Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween" - $7,500,000
5. "Hunter Killer" - $6,650,000
6. "The Hate U Give" - $5,100,000
7. "First Man" - $4,935,000
8."Smallfoot" - $4,750,000
9. "Night School" - $3,255,000
10. "Mid90s" -$3,000,000

"Johnny English Strikes Again" and "Indivisible" just missed the cut, opening in 12th and 13th places, respectively, as they played in less than 1,000 theaters. But that's just over here. Rowan Atkinson's comedy sequel has already made more than $100 million at the foreign box office. "Suspiria" only opened in two theaters, but it managed to take No. 21 on the chart with the weekend's best per-screen average -- $89,903.

All told, the October 2018 box office was one for the record books. According to Deadline, total weekend ticket sales for all films this weekend were up 32 percent from last year. And ComScore reported a new October record of $789.9M, topping October 2014’s $757.1M record.

What's next?

"Bohemian Rhapsody" and "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" will be ready, Freddie, on November 2.

[Via: Deadline, Box Office Mojo]

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