The communal experience of seeing movies in theaters was on full display at the weekend box office as audiences across the country screeched, screamed and hollered together when watching New Line’s original horror pic Weapons.
Thanks to winning over critics and audiences alike, director Zach Cregger’s buzzy movie came in more than $10 million ahead of expectations to win the weekend with $42.5 million in yet another notable victory for New Line and parent company Warner Bros., as well as for original stories. Overseas, it took in an equally impressive $27.5 million for a global debut of $70 million.
That wasn’t the only freakishly good headline of the weekend. In a double win for the late-summer box office, Disney’s body-swapping comedy Freakier Friday landed on the high end of expectations with a $29 million domestic start to come in second and become the top August opening ever for a PG-rated pic (or G-rated film for that matter). Overseas, it launched to $15.5 million for a global bow of $44.5 million — all but on par with its modest $45 million budget before marketing.
And, just as Weapons is a boost for the challenged horror genre, the Freaky Friday sequel is the second win in a row following Paramount’s Naked Gun for big-screen studio comedies, which have become an endangered species in the streaming era.
Both new films ran circles around Disney and Marvel’s superhero tentpole The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which suffered another steep drop in its second week, falling roughly 60 percent to an estimated $15.5 million for a troubled domestic total of $240.3 million and $434.2 million globally.
Heading into the weekend, prerelease tracking showed Weapons and Freakier Friday opening in the $25 million to $30 million range, but the former quickly pulled ahead after landing an impressive 96 percent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes and an A- CinemaScore from audiences, an almost unheard of grade for a horror pic. Exceptions include Jordan Peele’s seminal horror pic Get Out, which also earned an A- and made Peele one of the most sough-after directors overnight.
The script for the creepy R-rated pic was the subject of a heated bidding war when the package hit the market. New Line and Warners prevailed over rivals after plunking down $38 million, including a $10 million payday for Cregger, who made waves with his debut feature film, 2022’s Barbarian, which he both wrote and directed.
Weapons, skewing male, stars Julia Garner as a teacher who learns that 17 of the 18 children in her classroom simultaneously got out of bed and ran off into the night at the exact same time, 2:17 a.m. Josh Brolin plays a grieving father who is intent on finding his missing child, and is suspicious that the young teacher had something to do with it. Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams and Amy Madigan also star in Weapons, which has quite the twist.
Rival studios say Warners’ marketing campaign for Weapons was nothing short of brilliant, considering it didn’t want to ruin the surprise and exploit the twist in marketing materials.
Other stats: it is playing in coveted Imax auditoriums. All told, Imax and other premium large-format screens turned in a huge 34 percent of the opening gross.
Freakier Friday — reuniting Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis 23 years after Freaky Friday became a cult classic — is crowd favorite among both families and general moviegoers, earning a perfect A CinemaScore. And its audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is 93 percent, versus 89 percent for Weapons (the latter’s audience score is 89 percent).
The Freaky Friday sequel is the first event pic in weeks to target girls and women, and is also benefiting from the nostalgia factor. A fun tidbit: the 2003 film popped up on the top 10 list of the most-watched films on Disney+ in the last two weeks. Parents gave the film a perfect five out of five stars on exit polling service PostTrak; ditto for kids (16 percent of ticket buyers were under 16).
Directed by Nisha Ganatra, the movie picks up after the events of the first film, when Lohan’s character, Anna, swapped bodies with her mother, Tess, played by Curtis. This time around, in a multigenerational twist, they find themselves swapping places with, respectively, the daughter and soon-to-be stepdaughter of Anna. Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons, Manny Jacinto, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Rosalind Chao, Chad Michael Murray, Vanessa Bayer and Mark Harmon also star.
The Freaky Friday franchise, which also includes a 1976 film, is based on the book by Mary Rodgers. Disney has enjoyed great success in tapping into nostalgia and luring young adults in their 20s and 30s who grew up on its library of films. For example, it’s live-action tentpole Lilo & Stitch, based on the 2002 animated film, is the only Hollywood pic of 2025 so far to clear the $1 billion milestone after attracting both families and non-parents.
Elsewhere on the box office chart, Universal and DreamWorks Animations modestly budgeted Bad Guys 2 followed Fantastic Four to come in fourth, falling a respectable 53 percent in its sophomore outing to $10.4 million for a 10-day domestic tally of $43.4 million.
The R-rated, male-skewing Naked Gun also held well in its second weekend, dropping only 50 percent to $8.4 million for a domestic cume of $33 million. It was only the second studio comedy of the year to test the waters, and did so successfully in opening to nearly $17 million domestically. While that film is considered more of a straight-up comedy, versus a family comedy such as Freakier Friday, it is good news for all that they both work.
Naked Gun isn’t only symbolic for showing that comedies can still work theatrically. It was also the last movie released by the prior Paramount regime before David Ellison’s Skydance closed its $8 billion merger with Paramount Global on Aug. 7. Skydance has been Paramount’s longtime co-financing and co-production partner, but was not involved with Naked Gun.
In its fifth weekend, DC Studios and Warners’ Superman continued to show staying power in its fifth weekend. It placed sixth place domestically with $7.8 million for a North American cume of $331.2 million, while taking in another $5.8 million overseas for a foreign tally of $247.6 million and $578.8 million worldwide. The film is virtually assured of clearing $600 million worldwide; just how much more is unclear. In past times, a marquee superhero pic earning $600 million or so globally would have left unhappy studio brass wanting much more, but times have changed. A weakening demand for comic book adaptations is especially problematic overseas, particularly in Asia; whereas the international box office used to pony up 60 percent to 70 percent of the bottom line for superhero titles. Yet both Superman and Fantastic Four have earned more domestically than overseas.
Dinosaurs apparently don’t face the same issue. Many in Hollywood were dubious as to whether Universal and Amblin’s 2025 summer tentpole Jurassic World Rebirth — the umpeenth reboot featuring a whole new cast — would work. The short answer: it has. On Monday, it will become only the third 2025 Hollywood title to cross $800 million globally after finishing Sunday with a worldwide tally of $799.9 million, including $326.8 million in North America and a T-Rex size $473.2 million overseas. In its sixth weekend, it placed seventh domestically after Superman with $4.7 million despite now being available in the home on premium VOD. Overseas, it took in another $16 million.
Apple Original Films and Warners’ F1: The Movie still hasn’t run out of gas either and remained among the top 10 performers in its seventh weekend. Directed by Joseph Kosinski and starring Brad Pitt, the Formula One action-adventure is one the summer’s biggest surprises, and has earned nearly as much as Superman, or $570.7 million globally. The lion’s share comes from overseas, or $392.1 million.
