FRIDAY MIDDAY: Scream, if you wanna go to the movies. The horror franchise is definitely seeing a record opening in U.S./Canada with Scream VI set to make $42M which outstrips the previous domestic debut high of Scream 3 ($34.7M). Paramount is going to have a great weekend with the No. 1 movie, a big splashy world premiere tonight at SXSW with EOne’s Dungeons & Dragons and Top Gun: Maverick up for six Oscars including Best Picture on Sunday. The Radio Silence directed, Spyglass Media movie is looking at a Friday of $18.7M. The pic is booked at 3,675 theaters.
Second goes to MGM/UAR’s Creed III with around $25M at 4,007 theaters, -57% in weekend 2, getting the pic very close to the $100M mark. Wow, that will be just over ten days to the benchmark. Creed II crossed the century mark in 24 days while the first Creed took 38 days.
Third is Sony’s 65 at 3,405 theaters, a $4M Friday and a shot at $10M. The movie is rated PG-13.
Fourth is the fourth weekend of Disney/Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania with $7M at 3,105 theaters, -45%, after a $1.8M Friday, and a running total of $198M by EOD Sunday.
Fifth is the third weekend of Universal’s Cocaine Bear at 3,196 theaters with a $1.7M Friday $6.2M 3-day, -44%, and running total $51.7M.
FRIDAY AM: The Paramount/Spyglass Media release of Scream VI is off to a loud start with $5.7M in Thursday previews from its 5 p.m. fan event and and 5:30 p.m. previews at 3,125 theaters. It’s expected that the sixthquel is headed to a franchise-record domestic start of $35M-$40M this weekend. The latest Scream from Radio Silence also is expected to notch a record $50M+ global debut of from 50 territories.
Scream VI‘s preview cash is higher than the $3.5M Thursday that Paramount/Spyglass’ previous Scream made last year, and it’s higher than the Thursday money of last week’s MGM/UAR’s Creed III, which did $5.45M before also hitting a franchise-record start of $58.3M stateside and $100M+ worldwide.
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The highest opening for a Scream movie is Scream 3 back in 2000, which posted a 3-day of $34.7M. The 2022 Scream opened to $30M and legged out to $81M, proving horror movies’ great worth in the Covid-easing theatrical marketplace. Paramount also had A Quiet Place Part II before Scream, which teed off the 2021 summer box office over Memorial Day.
Scream VI is produced by Project X’s William Sherak, Paul Neinstein and James Vanderbilt, and the latter also co-wrote the pic.
Sony has the Adam Driver sci-fi movie 65, which is rated PG-13. It’s expected to hit in the high single digits. Last night it did $1.225M from shows that began at 4 p.m. at 2,901 locations.
Creed III ended its first week at $74.1M at 4,007 theaters. The movie had the Imax screens this past week, which Paramount won’t have for Scream VI, though the horror pic will have the premium large format screens. Creed III made $3M yesterday, -11% from Wednesday.
The rest of the pics were as follows off industry estimates:
2. Cocaine Bear (Uni) 3,571 theaters, Thu $840K (-12% from Wed), $15.2M week, $45.4M/Wk 2
3. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (Dis) 3,825 theaters, Thu $775K, -11%, $16.6M week, $190.9M/Wk 3
4. Jesus Revolution (LG) 2,575 theaters, Thu $770K (-15%), $12.3M week, $34.2M/Wk 2
5. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba – To The Swordsmith Village (Cru) 1,780 theaters, Thu 1,780 theaters, Thu $452K, -21%, week $12.5M/Wk 1.