Weapons Opens with Huge 42.5 Million
With Weapon's massive opening, let's see how it will affect the movie industry.
Zach Cregger’s Weapons not just opened at the top of the box office this weekend, it crushed it. The movie opened with 42.5 million at the domestic box office, which is a fantastic number for an original horror movie. Overseas, the movie added another 27.5 million, for a worldwide opening of 70 million. So we’re talking about a movie that cost 38 million to produce and already grossed almost double than that in a single weekend. Kudos to Warner Bros. for one of the best marketing campaigns in recent memory, and of course, director Zach Cregger.
Not only that, but it continues Warner’s remarkable strike, especially in the horror division. Actually, the top three horror movies openings of the year are all from Warner – Final Destination: Bloodlines and Sinners. How did it happen? Not only was the marketing great, but the movie itself was, well, great. The reviews were incredible (95% on Rotten Tomatoes, 81 on Metacritic) and it also received an “A-“ at CinemaScore, which is quite rare for a horror movie.
I’m very curious about the legs. Anything around 50% drop will be great for this kind of movie, but with the huge buzz and astonishing word-of-mouth, who knows? It can drop around 40%, maybe even 30%. Remember, earlier this year, Sinners made history – that movie dropped only 6% in its second weekend, and everyone was in total shock. Of course I hope Weapons will have that kind of drop, but it sounds much unrealistic to me. Along with the healthy overseas numbers, I have a feeling that the movie could gross something close to 200 million, which will be a huge win.
I wonder how this movie will affect the industry. I bet we’ll get more horror movies, whether it will be new horror movies or revived IPs, it’s still too early to know, but regardless, the horror genre is not going anywhere. But even that, studios should look at Warner Bros., especially thanks to the massive success of Final Destination: Bloodlines and Sinners (which overall have grossed 285 million and 365 million, respectively). As for Warner, they have The Conjuring: Last Rites in September, and I’m sure it will open big (it was built as a finale), but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ll announce more spin-offs soon – like Annabelle 4. As for director Zach Cregger, his next movie is the Resident Evil reboot, and I’m sure that now everyone is really looking forward to it.