Perhaps it’s the fact that Halloween is over, but Five Nights at Freddy’s took a big tumble in its sophomore frame, down 76% to $19.4 million, after a record-breaking premiere of $80M. Other factors for this slide are simply that horror movies tend to be front-loaded and quickly drop off. Add in that this film was simultaneously released on Peacock, so anyone who wants to see this film again can do so from home. Also, Freddy’s was made strictly for the fans with little effort given to courting a larger audience. It seems the core fan base turned out in droves for the debut weekend… and that was it.
As a result, this was the fourth lowest-grossing weekend of 2023 with all movies combined, taking in $64.6M. That is better than September 15-17, the sophomore frame for The Nun II) with $52.6M; February 10-12, Super Bowl Weekend, when Magic Mike’s Last Dance took the top spot and the total box office garnered $52.6M; and September 22-24, The Nun II‘s third week at the top, with the total box office amounted to just $51.8M.
This weekend was expected to be much bigger with the release of Dune Part Two. But Warner Bros. pushed that film’s release to 2024, due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. The all-star cast, which includes Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Florence Pugh, and Austin Butler, can’t even currently promote it.
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour landed at #2 again, with $13.5M and there are rumors that this concert film may get an extra fifth weekend run. This picture cost just $15M to make since it is just a recording of her tour, so anything it made after its huge opening weekend is just icing on the cake.
Two new movies popped into the Top Five. Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla marks the filmmaker’s widest release of her career and grossed $5.08M. This tells the story of Priscilla Presley’s perspective of her romance with Elvis. At #5 is the Spanish language film Radical starring Eugenio Derbez. That received an A+ CinemaScore.
Here is the Top Five:
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- Five Nights at Freddy’s (Universal) – 3-day $19.4M/ Total $113.6M/ Wk 2
- Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (AMC) – 3-day $13.5M/ Total $166M/ Wk 4
- Killers of the Flower Moon (Apple/Paramount) – 3-day $7M/ Total $52.3M/ Wk 3
- Priscilla (A24) – 3-day $5.08M/ Total $5.3M/ Wk 2
- Radical (Pantelion) – 3-day, $2.73M/ Wk 1
The box office will get something of a jolt next weekend with the release of the newest Marvel Cinematic Universe entry, The Marvels. Unfortunately, that franchise has been struggling lately. This is tracking to be one of the worst openings so far. As of right now, it looks like The Marvels will only open to around $75-80M which is roughly 50% less than the $153M debut of Captain Marvel in 2019.
Then again, that picture went on to make over $1B. Maybe The Marvels will also have legs and may do well in the long run.
Are you planning to hit the cinema to see The Marvels? Or are you looking forward to any other releases?
