Box Office Battle: 'Halloween' breaks records with scary $77.5M

Comcast (CMCSA) subsidiary Universal's "Halloween" opened to $77.5M from 3,920 theaters, the second-best showing of all time for an R-rated horror pic, the second-best debut ever for the month of October and the biggest-grossing "Halloween" movie of all time. Overseas, the direct sequel to the 1978 classic slasher hit started off with $14.3M from its first 23 markets, for a global bow of $91.80M. The movie earner a B+ CinemaScore and sports 80% Rotten Tomatoes score. BOX OFFICE RUNNERS-UP: AT&T (T) subsidiary Warner Bros' "A Star Is Born" remained at number two, with $19.3M domestically from 3,884 cinemas. Behind it was Sony's (SNE) "Venom," finishing the weekend with $18.1M for a $461M worldwide cume. Another Sony title, "Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween" placed number four with an estimated $9.7M in its second outing for a domestic total of $28.8M. Rounding out the top five, Universal's "First Man" grossed $8.6M for a 10-day domestic total of about $30M. Other publicly traded companies in filmmaking include 21st Century Fox's (FOX, FOXA), Viacom (VIAB), Lionsgate's (LGF.A, LGF.B) and Disney's (DIS).