The Boxoffice Podium
Forecasting the Top 3 Movies at the Domestic Box Office | August 8 – 10, 2025
Week 32 | August 8 – 10, 2025
1. Freakier Friday
Walt Disney Pictures | NEW
Opening Weekend Range: $35M – $45M
Showtime Marketshare: 16%
Pros
- This coming frame sees Disney putting all their chips on a different Fantastic Four. The legacy sequel to the 2003 remake Freaky Friday, Freakier Friday is looking to take first place this weekend, with our forecasting panel leaning toward a bow in the high $30M’s with a chance to reach low-$40M’s if it breaks through. Since relaunching the Halloween franchise in 2018, star Jamie Lee Curtis has experienced a renaissance including hits like Knives Out and her Oscar-winning supporting turn in Everything Everywhere All at Once. After a career downturn in the mid-2000’s, co-star Lindsay Lohan has of late been making a comeback starring in popular Netflix rom-coms like Our Little Secret. Both actresses are in a prime position to mine nostalgia for their first Freaky, which minted $110.2M domestic and $160.8M globally, currently ranking high on Disney+ streaming.
Cons
- Last weekend saw legacy comedy The Naked Gun underperform to expectations ($16.8M), with 2025 already being a mixed year for long-gap sequels in the Karate Kid and I Know What You Did Last Summer franchises. Comedy itself is under fire these days in the theatrical space, considering it’s now the lowest-earning genre among fiction films. Unadjusted, the original Freaky Friday opened to $22.2M over two decades ago when it was sold off the back of teen icon Lohan, but Freakier Friday will be relying a lot more on parental nostalgia than any current youth cache the two stars have (if any). Rotten Tomatoes critical is currently tallying 80%, which is good but not spectacular enough to win over those on the fence.
2. Weapons
Warner Bros. | NEW
Opening Weekend Range: $25M – $35M
Showtime Marketshare: 13%
Pros
- Freakier Friday has the name recognition, aughties member berries, and the Disney brand seal of approval… but Warner Bros.’ original horror title Weapons is stoking the fires of curiosity with a Mystery Box ad campaign that could provide a strong opening weekend. It is the brainchild of Zach Cregger, who—like Jordan Peele before him—is a former sketch comedian who made a splash in the horror world with his debut film, the low-budget Barbarian ($40.8M domestic). Like its body-swapping competition, Weapons should have a performance in the high-$20M’s, and perhaps the low $30M’s should those IMAX showtimes fill up in the coming days.
Cons
- With enough of a groundswell, there is a world where Weapons could feasibly open a notch ahead of Freakier Friday. There is also a chance all the mystique surrounding the plot about missing children might not be enough to woo general audiences to a non-IP genre movie. It could also be a case, as with the “C+” on last week’s well-reviewed Together, that audiences reject what the critical community has embraced. Cregger might be a fast-rising talent currently putting together the Resident Evil reboot, but having him as a producer on the highly-praised Companion couldn’t keep that January 2025 release from disappointing ($20.8M domestic).
3. The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Disney/Marvel Studios | Wk 3
Weekend Range: $15M – $20M
Showtime Marketshare: 12%
Pros
- Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps seemingly already won the most important battle in the court of public opinion, since it had good feedback from audiences and critics on top of a solid opening at the box office. Should Marvel’s First Family continue to find favor in next year’s Avengers: Doomsday, they may see a boost when/if the studio decides to make an FF sequel, which is what happened with second entries in their Spider-Man, Thor, Doctor Strange, Captain America, Ant-Man, and Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Even if there is no eventual standalone sequel, Kevin Feige can sleep at night knowing the new movie ($201.66M domestic/$371.95M WW) already lapped the 2005 film ($154.69M domestic/$333.1M WW).
Cons
- Not only was last week’s sophomore drop worse than Sunday estimates ($38.69M for a -67% drop), Fantastic Four is now poised to lose a good number of its PLF screens this weekend following that disappointment. The fact that the movie took place in a different corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was initially seen as an advantage for continuity-exhausted audiences, but the lack of breadcrumbs/connections with future movies may be a reason fans aren’t going back for seconds. Despite weak competition, our panel is predicting another steep -50%+ drop in Frame 3, and while FF has already bested Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts* domestically, it was a pricier film than those two, with bigger expectations it shall not meet. Among a franchise that has seen over 20 films gross above the $300M mark stateside, First Steps is not destined to be among them. Globally, it may be looking at a performance in the ballpark of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania ($476M), which on a similar $200M budget back in 2023 was considered catastrophic for Marvel Studios.
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