Weekend projections: Scream scores best opening for franchise and 2026

Scream 7 is continuing its great momentum through the weekend, beating our Friday-morning prediction by more than 10% to land with $64.1 million, according to Paramount’s Sunday projection. That’s easily a record for the franchise, beating Scream VI’s $44.4 million.

Here are the official studio projections for the weekend (click the image for a full chart of all films reporting so far).

On an inflation-adjusted basis, Scream 2 still takes the franchise prize, with its $32.9-million debut back in December 1997 being worth around $85.7 million based on today’s ticket prices. Scream 3’s $34.7 million opening in February 2000 would equate to $77 million today, meaning that this outing lies third for the franchise in terms of tickets sold.

This great weekend can’t be entirely attributed to the return of Neve Campbell to the franchise (after all, Scream VI did well without her), but clearly keeping the same key cast over the franchise’s thirty-year history is part of what has made it a long-term success.

With another $33.1 million internationally this weekend, Scream 7 will finish the weekend within touching distance of $100 million worldwide on a $45-million production budget. If they can get the cast back together, Scream 8 seems like a good bet for 2028 or so.

The rest of the top 10 is falling about in line with expectations, with the welcome addition of Twenty One Pilots: More Than We Ever Imagined. Trafalgar Releasing hasn’t announced a number for the weekend, so the figure in the chart above is an unofficial projection. With EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert landing just behind Twenty One Pilots in fifth place, this is another weekend significantly boosted by special event programming, and the two them together are taking the top 10 total for the weekend comfortably over $100 million—more than double what we saw this time last year.

– Studio weekend projections

– All-time top-grossing movies in North America

– All-time top-grossing movies worldwide

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Bruce Nash, bruce.nash@the-numbers.com