‘Weapons’ Scares Up $42.5 Million, Beats ‘Freakier Friday’ at U.S. Box Office

American audiences are making it clear — give them fresh, well-made horror films, and they’ll show up in droves.

This weekend, Zach Cregger’s Weapons dominated the U.S. box office, pulling in $42.5 million domestically. It’s the second time this year that an original horror film has taken the top spot. Back in April, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners debuted to $45.6 million.

Both films are distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, which seems to have found “a great formula for making big horror hits,” according to Comscore senior analyst Paul Dergarabedian. Warner Bros. Discovery is the parent company of CNN.

Weapons has already outperformed Cregger’s 2022 hit Barbarian, which grossed $40.8 million in the U.S. The buzz is strong — Rotten Tomatoes scores show 95% positive reviews for Weapons and 97% for Sinners. “Horror movies that get great reviews, that are super buzzy, like Weapons, can do extraordinarily well at the box office,” Dergarabedian said.

‘Freakier Friday’ Opens Strong

In second place, Disney’s Freakier Friday opened with $29 million. The film is a sequel to the 2003 hit Freaky Friday, a fantasy comedy that, adjusted for inflation, earned $193.1 million domestically.

“Having a comedy from Disney with Freakier Friday and a horror movie like Weapons on the other end of the genre spectrum really worked. There was something for everyone,” Dergarabedian noted.

Box Office Still on the Rise

The overall box office continues its upward trend, now up 7.6% compared to this time last year, reaching $5.6 billion so far in 2025.

Marvel and Disney’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps came in third with $15.5 million in its third week — a 60% drop from last week — bringing its domestic total to $230.4 million.

Two films that opened last weekend rounded out the top five: animated family movie Bad Guys 2 earned $10.4 million for fourth place, while comedy sequel The Naked Gun — the fourth entry in the franchise — pulled in $8.37 million to take fifth.

“It’s a good weekend for the summer to start winding down,” said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory. He added that Disney still has two major releases this year — Zootopia 2 on November 26 and Avatar: Fire and Ash on December 19.