‘Jigsaw’ wins pitiful Halloween weekend box office as ‘Suburbicon’ flops

It was a scary weekend for Hollywood — and not just because Halloween is around the corner.

Four horror movies factored into the top ten films at the box office, with Saw franchise sequel Jigsaw leading the pack with a $16.2 million debut. The eighth film in the gory torture series is off to a decent start for a film that only cost $10 million to make, but it had the second-worst opening weekend of the franchise so far and poor reviews from both general audiences and professional critics.

Joining Jigsaw in the weekend’s top ten films were horror films Boo 2! A Madea Halloween, Happy Death Day, and It — all three of which are doing well in various stages of their theatrical runs.

The presence of all those scary movies in the weekend’s top ten films wasn’t the only frightening aspect of the box office report, as Jigsaw also ended up with one of the worst weekends for a number-one movie this year. The weekend is shaping up to be the second worst box-office weekend of the year so far —  on track to finish just ahead of the August 25-27 weekend, which generated less than $65 million total in U.S. theaters and was the worst box-office weekend since 2001.

As for the rest of the weekend’s top movies, the only other new releases to number among the ten highest-grossing films were war drama Thank You For Your Service and murder comedy Suburbicon.

The $3.7 million premiere for Thank You For Your Service wasn’t too bad, considering the film cost just $20 million to make. The film was also the best-reviewed movie of the weekend, receiving an “A-” grade from audience survey site CinemaScore and 77-percent “Fresh” rating on review aggregator RottenTomatoes.

On the flip side, Suburbicon was savaged by critics and audiences alike, and its poor reviews were reflected in the film’s $2.8 million debut. That’s not exactly what one might expect from a film directed by George Clooney, co-written by Joel and Ethan Coen, and starring Matt Damon, so the studio is likely a bit disappointed in the film’s premiere.

This upcoming weekend’s new releases are dominated by the arrival of Marvel Studios’ Thor: Ragnarok, which is all but assured of winning the weekend and injecting some big numbers into the box office. Also arriving in theaters is the holiday-themed, raunchy comedy sequel A Bad Moms Christmas, the dramatic biopic LBJ, and director Takashi Miike’s live-action adaptation of the popular manga series Blade of the Immortal.