American moviegoers are sending a loud and clear message to Hollywood: make quality, original horror movies and we will come.
This weekend, Zach Cregger’s “Weapons” topped the box office, grossing $42.5 million domestically. It’s the second time this year that an original horror was No. 1 at the box office. In April, Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” raked in $45.6 million in its opening weekend.
Both “Weapons” and “Sinners” are distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, which has shown “a great formula for making big horror hits,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior analyst at Comscore.
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“Weapons” has already surpassed Cregger’s 2022 hit “Barbarian,” which grossed $40.8 million domestically. Reviews for “Weapons” were 95% positive, while “Sinners” got 97%, according to review-aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes.
“Horror movies that get great reviews, that are super buzzy, like ‘Weapons,’ can do extraordinarily well at the box office,” said Dergarabedian.
The No. 2 movie at the weekend box office was Disney’s “Freakier Friday,” which opened to $29 million. It’s the sequel to the 2003 release of “Freaky Friday,” a fantasy comedy that grossed $193.1 million domestically, adjusted for inflation.
“Having a comedy from Disney with ‘Freakier Friday’ and then having a horror movie at the other end of the genre and rating spectrum really worked. So there was really something for everyone,” said Dergarabedian
“Weapons” and “Freakier Friday” were more wins for the overall box office, which is up 7.6% from this time last year for a total of $5.6 billion, according to Comscore data.
Disney and Marvel’s “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” which is in its third week in theaters, dropped 60% in earnings from the previous week, grossing $15.5 million and snagging the No. 3 spot. That brings its total domestic earnings to $230.4 million.
Two movies that opened last weekend came in a No. 4 and No. 5. Animated family film “Bad Guys 2” brought in $10.4 million, while “The Naked Gun,” the fourth film of the franchise, earned $8.37 million.
“It’s a good weekend for the summer to start winding down,” said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder and owner of Box Office Theory, adding that Disney’s next “biggest hitters” are coming up at the end of the year — “Zootopia 2” on November 26 and “Avatar: Fire and Ash” opening December 19.
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