right thing". Despite Loomis' protests, however, Michael is killed shortly afterwards in a hail of gunfire, and the film ends with Loomis looking down sadly at his former patient's corpse. Release Approximately four days before the theatrical release of the film, a workprint version of Halloween appeared online and was circulated around various BitTorrent sites. Upon hearing of the leaked copy, Zombie stated that whatever version had been leaked was an older version of the film, unlike what was about to be released in theaters. The leak of Zombie's workprint led to speculation that the film's box office success could be damaged, as director Eli Roth attributed the financial failure of his film, Hostel: Part II, to the leaking of a workprint version. Dark Horizons webmaster Garth Franklin noted that watching the workprint allows a viewer to see what was changed after test screenings of the film in June 2007. For example, one particular scene—the rape of one of the Smith's Grove female inmates—was replaced in the final version. Halloween was officially released on August 31, 2007, to 3,472 theaters in North America, giving it the widest release of any of the previous Halloween films. Reception Box office On its opening day, Halloween grossed $10,896,610, and immediately surpassed the opening weekend grosses for Halloween II (1981) at $7,446,508, Season of the Witch (1982) at $6,333,259, The Return of Michael Myers (1988) at $6,831,250, The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989) at $5,093,428, and The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) at $7,308,529. From September 1–2, Halloween earned $8,554,661 and $6,911,096, respectively, for a 3-day opening weekend total of $26,362,367. The film would earn an additional $4,229,392 on Labor Day for a 4-day holiday weekend gross of $30,591,759, making it the highest ever for that holiday. As a result, the 2007 film would immediately surpass the total box office gross for Halloween II (1981) at $25,533,818, Halloween III (1982) at $14,400,000, Halloween 4 (1988) at $17,768,757, Halloween 5 (1989) at $11,642,254, The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) at $15,116,634, and Halloween: Resurrection (2002) with $30,354,442. Following its first Friday after its opening weekend, Halloween saw a 71.6% drop in attendance, earning $3,093,679. The film, which earned the #1 spot at the box office in its opening weekend, earned only $9,513,770 in its second weekend—a 63.9% decrease—but still claimed the #2 spot at the box office just behind 3:10 to Yuma. The film continued