Weekend projections: Weapons and Freakier Friday both land excellent openings

Weapons is headed towards a massive opening weekend, with Warner Bros projecting a $42.5-million opening as of Sunday morning. That marks the sixth consecutive $40-million-plus opening for the studio since A Minecraft Movie opened in April—a record run for any studio. Disney’s Freakier Friday is taking the old-school route to a $29 million debut.

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

Weapons’ opening is a shade better than our Friday-morning prediction, and moves director Zach Cregger into the top tier of directors in the horror genre. Among wholly original horror movies, only Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, Jordan Peele’s Nope and Us have opened with more than Weapons’ $42.5 million. Arguably, one could include M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs and The Village on that list (we classify those films as thriller/suspense), but that just confirms that we’re looking at an unusual combination of respect for the director, and savvy studio marketing to get a result like this.

The audience for Weapons skews male (65%) and young-ish (72% under 35, but 46% between 25 and 34). Audience enthusiasm is consistently very high for a horror movie, with males giving it an A- CinemaScore, and females giving it a B+.

Internationally, Weapons is doing solid, but less spectacular, business, with $27.5 million for the weekend and a global total to date of $70 million. The strongest markets at the United Kingdom, with $3.6 million; Mexico, $2.7 million; and France, with $2.0 million.

Freakier Friday is almost a mirror image of Weapons demographically, with an audience that is 74% female. 68% of its audience is under 35. It is landing with a stellar A CinemaScore. That, plus the demographics of its audience bodes well for a strong theatrical run. Disney says it is enjoying the highest August opening ever for a G/PG movie.

The one worrying stat this weekend is the steep drop for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which will fall another 60% in its third weekend. Our model now predicts it will end with $300 million at the domestic box office, with a multiplier of 2.55 compared to its $117.6-million opening weekend. By way of comparison, Superman is headed for $368 million, as of this morning’s model run, for a multiplier of 2.94.

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– 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