Box Office Preview: ‘Weapons’ Scares Up $5M+, ‘Freakier Friday’ Opens With $3M in Previews
The weekend box office is heating up with two very different crowd-pullers making their debut — a chilling new horror flick and a nostalgia-fueled family sequel.
New Line’s R-rated horror movie Weapons, directed by Zach Cregger, is off to a strong start with over $5 million collected from preview screenings. That puts it in the same ballpark as the studio’s earlier summer horror hit Final Destination: Bloodlines, which made $5.5M in previews. If the momentum continues with strong walk-in business, the final number could be even higher by morning.
On the lighter side of things, Disney’s sequel to the 2003 body-swap comedy, Freaky Friday, is also drawing attention. Freakier Friday brought in around $3 million from previews, sources say. The film reunites Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis in a continuation of their mother-daughter chaos, and it’s clearly targeting fans who grew up with the original.
Earlier tracking had both films eyeing $30 million+ opening weekends. But buzz has picked up more strongly around Weapons in the past few days. Analysts now expect it to edge ahead with an opening in the low-to-mid $30 million range — and possibly more if strong word of mouth spreads.
Ticketing site Fandango has already labeled Weapons the second-best horror pre-seller of the year, behind Sinners and ahead of Final Destination: Bloodlines. That’s no small feat, especially considering the film’s impressive 97% certified fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 90% audience rating to match.
The big question now: can Weapons keep up the pace beyond its horror-loving core audience? Genre films often earn a large chunk of their revenue on opening night, known as being “frontloaded.” If Weapons wants to prove it has broader appeal, it needs to see only a moderate dip (between 12% to 14%) in earnings from Friday previews to Saturday. That’s the benchmark met by titles like Us, Sinners, and Bloodlines.
Marketing efforts have helped too. Warner Bros. ran a smart and mysterious promo campaign, teasing why a group of school kids flee their homes in the middle of the night. That buzz helped Weapons outpace Sinners’ $4.7M in previews and close in on Bloodlines’ $5.5M.
For context, Sinners earned 24% of its $19.2M Friday gross just from previews, leading to a $48M weekend. Bloodlines turned its 26% preview share into a $51.6M opening. Meanwhile, Jordan Peele’s Us still holds the preview crown among original horror films, with $7.4M in previews and a $71.1M debut weekend.
Both Weapons and Freakier Friday rolled out Wednesday night previews ahead of Thursday showtimes. Weapons even added a special Alamo Drafthouse screening Wednesday, with official previews kicking off at the unusual time of 2:17PM — a nod to a key moment in the movie. Freakier Friday started Wednesday at 7PM, marking exactly 22 years since the original premiered, before expanding showtimes on Thursday at 2PM.
As for Freakier Friday, its $3M preview haul lines up well with other recent PG-rated titles. Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King had $3.3M in previews before a $35.4M opening, while Warner Bros.’ Wonka took in $3.5M and went on to a $39M debut. No audience score has surfaced yet for the Lohan-Curtis sequel, but critics are warming to it — Rotten Tomatoes has the film at 73% certified fresh.
With strong nostalgia, family appeal, and two big genre films leading the weekend charge, the box office is heading into an interesting face-off. Will Weapons dominate, or could Freakier Friday surprise with long legs beyond the opening weekend? Stay tuned.
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