Movie Monday: ‘Regretting You’ Squeaks Under Pressure

Update: The folks behind Regretting You may be regretting their optimism. Though early studio estimates had the romantic drama winning the weekend’s box-office tourney–beating Black Phone 2 by a scant $100,000–the two changed places after all the receipts were counted. Black Phone 2 earned $8.3 million to win its second box-office title in three weeks. Regretting You slid to second with a paltry $7.8 million.

Does anybody deserve this weekend’s box-office trophy?

Sure, one film will wind up on top of the weekend’s standings: Regretting You earned an estimated $8.1 million in North America to make it the weekend’s presumptive winner—finishing about $100,000 ahead ofBlack Phone 2. But note that word: estimated. We won’t know the final tally until later this afternoon or tomorrow morning, and $100,000 isn’t much to make up when all the receipts are counted. So stay tuned: We’ll see if Regretting You holds onto the title.

But does it even matter? Broadly speaking, the whole box office was experiencing its own regrets. According to The Hollywood Reporter, this marked the lowest-grossing Halloween weekend in 31 years (excluding the COVID-closed weekend of 2020).

The weekend’s overall revenue—that is, the money earned by all 42 films in theatrical release—landed at a paltry $49.2 million. In 2024 by comparison, Venom: The Last Dance earned $51 million all by its lonesome during the last weekend in October. And no one was particularly excited about that opening, either.

The box office was dominated by holdovers. Last week’s champ, Chainsaw Man—The Movie: Reze Arc, lost two-thirds of its weekend-over-weekend audience, but it still earned $6 million stateside to finish third. Its domestic tally now stands at around $30.8 million, and its worldwide gross checks in at a towering $139 million.

Netflix’s KPop Demon Hunters got its second theatrical release of the year, good for $5.3 million this time around. The movie’s overall gross is now around $24.3 million. But don’t let that modest money pot fool you: Thanks to its original streaming release, KPop Demon Hunters just might be 2025’s most-seen film.

In its first weekend of wide release, Bugonia shaved $4.8 million from North American moviegoers to finish fifth. The 40^th anniversary re-release of Back to the Future nearly cracked the top five, landing in sixth place with $4.7 million.

But if we’re looking for a movie making a true debut, we have to go all the way down to ninth place with Stitch Head. The sweet-hearted animated film sewed up $2.1 million. Meanwhile, Anniversary absolutely tanked. It earned a mere $260,000 en route to a 21^st-place finish. Clearly, this was an Anniversary that nobody wanted to remember.