Box Office Special - Summer Goes Out With a Whimper

Labor Day, while an awesome excuse to lay around and do nothing for three days, is about as fallow a film going period as you'll find on the calendar. Just two years ago, "Halloween" set a new four-day weekend record with $30 million. Some weekends, that wouldn't even qualify for 2nd place, but on Labor Day it's a record.

That record was in little danger this year with a very-un-noteworthy collection of new releases in "All About Steve," "Extract" and "Gamer." None took in more than $12 million, and "Steve" was the highest finisher on the weekend at 3rd.

Instead, it was "The Final Destination" that came in with a second straight 1st place finish, narrowly edging "Inglorious Basterds" -- in its 3rd week in release -- with $12 million. While a win is always nice, "Destination's" backers likely aren't skipping for joy as this was, by a wide margin, the lowest total for any box office victor on the year. "Destination" also joins a short list of films to repeat as box office winners. Previously "The Hangover," "Transformers 2," "Madea Goes to Jail" and "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" had all accomplished the feat.

As I predicted last week, "Halloween II" saw a pretty steep drop off from its opening weekend. Falling 65% from its opening total, Zombie's film edged "Julia & Julia" for 6th place on its second pass. While not even in the same discussion as "Friday the 13th," which earlier this year plummeted like few films before, "Halloween 2" fared poorly. "Destination," also plagued by horrendous reviews, performed only slightly better by dropping an unflattering 55%.

Over the next couple of weeks we're going to be seeing a number of wide horror releases, including next week's open of "Sorority Row." For the BGH crew's formal prognostications, you'll have to check the latest episode of the podcast.