Box office ghosted: ‘Regretting You’ tops the worst weekend of 2025
Denton Davidson
Update Nov. 2, 2025:
Cupid outboxed the Grabber this weekend — but in a Halloween box office that was scary for all the wrong reasons. Paramount’s Regretting You eeked out a surprise win with an estimated $8.1 million, edging past Universal and Blumhouse’s Black Phone 2 at $8 million. Final numbers could still shift when Monday grosses are tallied, but either way, it was a photo finish between a Colleen Hoover love story and a spooky-season sequel.
Despite the tight race, the bigger story is the slump itself. Total weekend revenue came in at just $49.8 million, marking the worst weekend of 2025 and the lowest-grossing Halloween weekend in more than 30 years, according to Comscore. The last time October’s final weekend was this dismal was in 1993 — not counting 2020’s pandemic closures.
Industry analysts cited a perfect storm of distractions, with Halloween festivities, the World Series, and a lack of major new releases keeping moviegoers elsewhere. Still, studios managed to draw modest interest with holdovers and specialty titles.
Sony/Crunchyroll’s Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc slid to third place with $6 million, followed by Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters re-release with $5.3 million and Focus Features’ Bugonia rounding out the top five at $4.8 million. Bugonia expanded to more than 2,000 theaters — the widest release ever for a Yorgos Lanthimos film.
While the weekend may have been grim, there were bright spots. Regretting You has now grossed $27.5 million domestic and over $50 million worldwide, while Black Phone 2 crossed the $100 million global mark, solidifying it as one of Blumhouse’s biggest hits of the year.
Original story published Oct. 31, 2025
Ghoul’s night out? Not at the movies. Halloween festivities are expected to keep audiences away from theaters, leaving the domestic box office in a frightful lull. With trick-or-treaters filling the streets and few new films daring to open, projections point to a quiet — almost haunted — weekend at the multiplex.
Industry forecasts have Universal and Blumhouse’s Black Phone 2 likely leading the frame with around $7 million, benefiting from spooky-season timing. The horror sequel has already surpassed $50 million domestic and should continue to hold well through the holiday before tapering off next week.
Meanwhile, Focus Features’ Bugonia, the latest dark comedy from Yorgos Lanthimos, expands from 17 theaters to more than 1,800 nationwide and is expected to earn over $4 million in its sophomore outing. Starring Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone, the film has drawn glowing reviews (90 percent "fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes and a solid 70 on Metacritic) and strong word of mouth, setting the stage for Lanthimos’ biggest wide break yet and firming up its early awards-season prospects.
Bugonia centers around a pharmaceutical executive (Stone) who gets targeted by an obsessive conspiracy theorist (Plemons) convinced she's an alien in disguise bent on destroying Earth. The Oscar contender clocks in at 1 hour, 58 minutes and is rated R.
Elsewhere, Paramount’s Regretting You is projected to earn around $7 million, maintaining steady appeal with its core female audience, while Sony/Crunchyroll’s Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc is expected to tumble 65–70 percent after last weekend’s surprise No. 1 debut, for an estimated $5 million second frame.
Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters re-release is expected to add roughly $6 million, down sharply from its initial $19 million run in August, suggesting most fans already streamed the animated hit at home.
Reissues like Back to the Future (Universal) and The Twilight Saga (Summit/Lionsgate) offer nostalgia but little new momentum, reinforcing projections for one of the slowest Halloween weekends in recent memory. October 2025 is on track to close around $425 million total, the weakest showing for the month in 27 years outside the pandemic shutdowns.
Here are Gold Derby's predicted box-office rankings for the top five over the Oct. 31-Nov. 2 weekend:
1. Black Phone 2
2. Regretting You
3. KPop Demon Hunters
4. Bugonia
5. Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc
Do you agree or disagree with those rankings? Make your predictions right now — it's fun and easy!
