Ben Fritz at The Los Angeles Times reports this morning that while Rob Zombie’s Halloween II fell $9 million short of the previous installment and came in third to The Final Destination and Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds in its holdover weekend, that doesn’t mean Dimension is done with the franchise. Word from Weinstein co-Chairman Bob Weinstein is that the 3-D sequel, titled, appropriately enough, Halloween 3D, is in development, but Zombie won’t return for a third go ’round.
It only makes sense, considering horror films are done on the relative cheap and with 3-D on the rise and obviously a worthwhile business for 3-D with Final Destination‘s success as well as My Bloody Valentine 3-D earlier this year, which never came in at #1, but ended up bringing in $93 million worldwide on a budget of only $15 million. Similarly, Halloween II was made for only $15 million and this weekend’s $17 million should have the film on its way to another satisfying return before DVD and Blu-ray sales.
Continuing on the topic of box-office returns, Final Destination distributor, Warner Bros., tells the “L.A. Times” theaters with at least one 3-D screen earned 3.25 times as much as those that showed the movie in 2-D only. The multiplier proves to play a large part helping out horror specifically with films such as G-Force carrying a meager 1.7 multiplier, but the previously mentioned My Bloody Valentine earned 6.4 times as much from 3-D theaters as it did from 2-D on its opening weekend. I would say that is an added insentive.
Perhaps we should begin expecting more horror films in 3-D.
