Though it’s received plenty of harsh criticism from fans and haters alike since its release, Rob Zombie‘s remake of John Carpenter’s Halloween was a huge box office success for the shock rocker and horror director. In fact, for the past 14 years, the movie held the Labor Day box office record for highest-grossing debut. However, as of this weekend, Zombie’s record has officially been broken.
As reported by Bloody Disgusting, Zombie’s Halloween brought in an unprecedented $30,591,759 domestically when it was released in 2007, and eventually went on to make $58 million domestically and $80 million worldwide. However, this weekend saw Marvel’s new kung-fu action flick Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings bring in $71.4 million domestically upon its debut, with a whopping $83.5 million expected to be counted by the end of the four-day weekend.
Of course, Zombie’s film is technically still the bigger winner for the studio. Halloween cost $15 million to make, meaning that its opening weekend more than doubled its budget. Shang-Chi, on the other hand, cost $150 million to make — ten times the budget of Zombie’s production — meaning that even though it set the record for the weekend, it’s still a loss. That said, for a superhero movie without a very recognizable superhero to do so well over the Labor Day weekend is still pretty impressive.
Meanwhile, it’s not as though Rob really has time to sit around mourning the loss of his weekend box office record. The monster-rocker is currently hard at work on his reboot of The Munsters, having recently shared construction shots from the set, where he’s building the Munsters’ haunted-house home at 1313 Mockingbird Lane. Not only that, but Zombie has also recently announced a coffee collaboration with horror-leaning roasters Dead Sled, named ‘Hellbilly Brew.’ So, while it’s a bummer that Rob lost his box office record, he had a good decade-plus run, and anyway, he’s busy.
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Words by Chris Krovatin
