It’s quite unusual for two major horror movies to get released on the same weekend in the US, as it’s normally thought they’ll each soak up some of the other’s potential audience. However, Halloween II and The Final Destination went head-to-head and it was the latter that came out the winner.
The fourth Final Destination movie nabbed $28.3 million from Friday-Sunday, ahead of most people’s expectations. The movie was no doubt helped by the fact several thousand screens were showing it in 3D, which should also help stop the movie taking the usual horror movie route, which is to havea big first weekend, followed by a precipitous plummet down the box office rankings.
Halloween II didn’t even manage to make it to number 2 on the list, instead having to make do with coming in behind the second weekend of Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds, for a thrid place finish. Neither Halloween II or The Final Destination were screened for critics, which shows that for that type of film, reviews aren’t that important (especially as the write-ups were pretty dreadful when journalists did get to see the movies on Friday)
The only other new movie in the top 10 was Ang Lee’s new flick, the comedy Taking Woodstock, which came in at number 9 with $3.7 million. The movie did fairly well considering it was showing on fewer than half the screens of the other new films and had suffered middling reviews.
Take a look below for the rest of the US box office for the weekend of August 28th-30th.
| Rank | Title | Weekend Gross (millions) | Total Gross to date (millions) |
| 1 | The Final Destination | $28.3 | $28.3 |
| 2 | Inglourious Basterds | $20 | $73.8 |
| 3 | Halloween II | $17.4 | $17.4 |
| 4 | District 9 | $10.7 | $90.8 |
| 5 | G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra | $8 | $132.4 |
| 6 | Julie & Julia | $7.4 | $71 |
| 7 | The Time Travler’s Wife | $6.75 | $38.2 |
| 8 | Shorts | $4.9 | $13.6 |
| 9 | Taking Woodstock | $3.7 | $3.7 |
| 10 | G-Force | $2.8 | $111.8 |