Universal was expecting the openings for this and Exorcist to be reversed. They were not alone. I thought I was being optimistic with my $21M in the box office game and that was less than two months ago.

Deadline says 81% was 13-24. Yowza.

Not surprised at all based on what I saw. Multiplex in my area was full of young school kids. Some of them seem even younger than 13 !!!


FYI Charlie is saying strong sunday hold and 16m+ for 80m+ OW. Its not going to die that fast as its the water cooler movie. I wonder if it can beat Eras and finish as biggest movie this fall.

$80M+ with day and date streaming AND Halloween parties?

With practically nothing next weekend and lots of people busy Friday/Saturday night with Halloween stuff feel like next weekend may not be as horrendous since its now a zeitgeist movie everyone will need to see.

It's definitely a kid/teen series despite the horror or scary nature of it. I always found its success with kids unusual, but it's been big with them on YouTube and Twitch for many years. I think it's one of the earliest games that broke-out in the gaming stream community? And its longevity has been impressive. And, of course, it's branched out beyond gaming too with successful comics and more.

Doubt bad reviews matter against its legs given this. The good Cinemascore and audience reception vs mixed reviews (or poor in this case) reminds me of the Super Mario Bros. Movie. Wouldn't predict legs that strong but they should be decent. Would be be crazy if it hit $200m but I think it's doable. Being on Peacock could hurt repeat business though, or business in general if more people known it's on there.

Universal's year is bonkers for a post pandemic year:

Puss $129,870,190 (Dec. holdover)
M3Gan $95,043,350 January
Bear $64,388,510 February
Mario $574,934,330 April
Fast X $145,960,660 May
Oppenheimer $324,241,295 July
Exorcist $65,000,000M+ October -> Underwhelming but still not horrible.
Freddy's $160,000,000+ October

Flops:
Strays $23,988,885 August
Renfield $17,152,625 April
Demeter $13,637,180 August

Coming Up:
Trolls $100M+ November
Migration $100M+ December

They did a great job making what looked like small potential hits to big overperformances.

And in the times of "franchise fatigue" they created new franchises with M3Gan, Mario, Nolan universe (first film with the director), and Freddy's.

And it's insane that FNAF will open with a number so close to Oppenheimer's incredible opening. Wow.

Five Night at Freddys 2 will open with way above $100m at this point.

If might be the water fountain movie amongst kids at school, but I really doubt adults are going to be telling other adults at work that they need to see it. I don't know any adults that actually liked it. The CinemaScore is probably from adults that took their kids and the kids loved it, so the adults gave it a favorable rating. That and I'm sure the kids polled gave it an A+. Is there a breakdown of the CS for it?

I do think it might hold better than expected next weekend. It has no competition. Plus there's nothing for kids until Trolls.

$20M budget!

$80M actual confirmed domestic and $130M+ global 3day launch.

So hypothetically probably could have done $90M without streaming.

Halloween parties Friday / Saturday giving more distractions. Strike giving it no cast press.

I don't see how the sequel doesn't do $100M+ OW. Seems like this was artificially depressed by other factors in terms of box office.

Probably going to make 20X its budget. Sound of Freedom had a $14.5M budget for comparison.

What a huge win combined with Taylor for what months ago when Dune left looked like a completely dull October pre Swift announcement and Freddy buzz ramping.

They should just reboot Indiana Jones as a horror movie in the next iteration and hand it to Blumhouse.

https://deadline.com/2023/10/box-office ... 235584788/

Surprised by how bad the Flower Moon drop is. It has no overlap with Freddy and should have held better over the weekend considering the length.

I think the reason Moon is doing so well with dailies last week was people had more free time on weekdays.

Moon fell more so on its length + a busy Halloween post pandemic. Fitting in a 3.5 hour movie Halloween weekend is not something a lot of people want to do. There's a reason this weekend is historically a dumping ground and has never seen an OW like this in the second half of Oct. pre Freddy.

I expect dailies will be decent and it should recover a bit next weekend when people have the time.

Here are the top OW's ever in October in the last week of October (Oct. 25 - 31) pre-Freddy. Only 5 movies ever opened to $25M+ that week ever, with 3 of them Saw movies. Only 1 movie in the past 12 years has done it. Puss had a depressed OW due to it and ended up having essentially the same weekend gross weekend two.

1 Puss in Boots $34,077,439 Oct 28, 2011
2 Saw III $33,610,391 Oct 27, 2006
3 Jackass: Bad Grandpa $32,055,177 Oct 25, 2013
4 Saw IV $31,756,764 Oct 26, 2007
5 Saw II $31,725,652 Oct 28, 2005 Lions Gate Films

Strange example, but Jackass kind of feels like a comparison to Freddy of avid fans showing up in huge numbers who would see it regardless of reviews.

So for Freddy to do $80M in late October is really monumental for more than doubling the biggest OW ever for this time of year.