Scream VI is looking to take down all Scream’s before it with a projected $43.5 million opening.
Numbers have begun rolling in for this weekend’s slate of movies and Scream VI is looking to nab a franchise best opening weekend currently projected at $43.5 million after notching a solid start of $5.7 million on Thursday. That preview number is actually higher than last week’s Creed III which ended up opening to over $58 million. Of course horror films tend to be more front loaded and with spoilers rampant on the internet, the hard core fans probably wanted to see the movie as soon as possible so that nothing was ruined for them.
Last years Scream 5, or Scream as it was officially called, opened with $3.5 million in previews on its way to a $30.01 million opening while 2000’s Scream 3 currently holds the franchise record opening with $34.7 million. All eyes will be on Saturday’s numbers to see if this one is trending in the right direction. Reviews have been pretty strong, including an enthusiastic 9/10 from our own JimmyO. I saw the film last night at their “fan screening” and must say I very much enjoyed it. This franchise did probably the best job of any “re-quel” of handing off the story to a new set of characters, although I guess it helps (for me) that I was already a fan of Melissa Barrera as I loved In The Heights and Jenna Ortega has built up an incredibly solid horror resume in just the past year (whether being awesome in X or appearing in the hilarious Foo Fighters horror comedy Studio 666 and of course the hit Netflix series Wednesday). All that made the hand off of the series to a new set of leads more palatable.
The new Adam Driver led film pulled in $1.2 million from Thursday previews and is expected to finish the weekend with just over $10 million. In my predictions from Thursday,I thought it had a shot to get to that double digit opening… and then I saw it! If this movie pulls in better than expected numbers, it would be 100% because of the solid trailer because man oh man, what a completely wasted concept! The trailers looked cool, the concept was fairly genius, but the execution of this movie was absolutely horrible. Critics and audiences seem to agree with me as the film currently sits at a 31% Rotten Tomatoes score with a horrible 58% audience score. Our own Chris Bumbray was actually one of the few reviewers I saw give a passable grade to the film with a 6/10, but for me this one was a stinker from about 10 minutes in until the credits rolled.
The other new release of the weekend, Bobby Farrelly’s Champions did not have numbers reported as of this writing, which generally means they’re pretty bad. This one may be one of those films given a theatrical release solely to pump up the numbers once it hits PVOD and streaming. Our own Chris Bumbray did enjoy this one quite a bit though, giving it a solid 8/10 score.
Holdover films will fill out your top five with Creed III looking at a second weekend take around $26.7 million, which represents a fairly standard 54% decline from its opening weekend. Although that still puts the film on pace to hit the $100 million mark in just ten days, a full fourteen days faster than Creed II.
Fourth and fifth place will go to holdovers Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania with an estimated take of $7 million and Cocaine Bear with an estimated $6.2 million.
Have you made it to theaters yet this weekend? Did you see one of the new releases? Was Scream VI spoiled for you by the internet leaks (although to be fair, after I saw the movie, I looked back through some of the leaks and a lot of them were just flat out wrong)? Let us know in the comments, and don’t forget to check back tomorrow when we have a full rundown of this weeks box office numbers.