Key Takeaways
Total 3-Day Weekend Gross:
$130,983,092 | +5.6% Last Week / -17% Weekend 32, 2024
Warner Bros. is regaining its clout as a filmmaker-friendly studio by launching another big original idea to #1 with Zach Cregger’s horror thriller Weapons at $42.5M. Meanwhile, Disney’s Freakier Friday was not nearly the superfreak we were hoping for, opening with a modest $29M bow. Although we saw a week-to-week uptick, this frame was once again down year-over-year from this slot in 2024 when the third weekend of Deadpool & Wolverine remained atop the mountain.
- Top Title: Weapons (Warner Bros.) | $42.5M / 3,202 Screens / $13,273 PSA | Week 1
- Top Opener: Weapons (Warner Bros.) | $42.5M / 3,202 Screens / $13,273 PSA | Week 1
- Best PSA: Boys Go to Jupiter (Cartuna) | $15K / 1 Screen / $15,000 PSA | Week 1
Highlights From the Weekend
1. Weapons
Warner Bros. | NEW
$42.5M 3-Day Domestic Opening Weekend | $70M Global Total
When it became Fandango’s second-best horror ticket pre-seller of 2025 behind Sinners, we should have known, and by the time it crushed Freakier Friday in Thursday previews it was almost a certainty, but it’s now official: Weapons is the #1 movie of the weekend. New Line/Warner Bros.’ new horror flick from Barbarian helmer Zach Cregger rode a wave of positive critical reviews and audience word of mouth to over-index to $42.5M on 3,202 screens for a $13,273 Per Screen Average. That’s more than Cregger’s domestic lifetime total for Barbarian ($40.8M) and definitively cements him among the top contemporary horror auteurs including Jordan Peele, Oz Perkins, and Robert Eggers.
Here’s how the 3-Day looked, including $5.7M in Thursday previews…
- Friday – $18.15
- Saturday – $14M
- Sunday – $10.35M
This debut gave the original movie one of the biggest horror openings of 2025 in a year that’s nearly eclipsed the entire 2024 calendar gross for the horror genre ($847.7M) even though we’re still in Q3…
- Final Destination: Bloodlines – $51.6M opening / $138.1M domestic
- Sinners – $48M opening / $278.57M domestic
- Weapons – $42.5M opening
- 28 Years Later – $30M / $70.4M domestic
Although he’s been a part of huge franchises (Marvel, Dune, Men in Black), this is also easily Josh Brolin’s biggest opener as a leading man…
- Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018) – $19M opening / $50M domestic
- Gangster Squad (2013) – $17M opening / $46M domestic
- Hail Caesar! (2016) – $11.35M opening / $30M domestic
- W. (2008) – $10.5M opening / $25.5M domestic
It was also another check in the “win” column for Warner Bros., which continues to lead the market with an over 26% share, ahead of Disney. They’ve managed to do this by leaning on originals like Weapons, F1, and Sinners while also investing in new franchises like A Minecraft Movie. Yes, they also had Superman and Final Destination movies, but—except the underperforming Elio—Disney relied entirely on IP-driven fare that often underperformed (Snow White, the entire Marvel slate).
The Rotten Tomatoes critical reaction was excellent at 95% Fresh with an equally great 88% audience score. Often, there’s a discrepancy between the critical and audience scores in either direction when it comes to horror fare, but not this time with Weapons rocking an “A-” CinemaScore. This movie relied heavily on a Mystery Box ad campaign that promised curveballs and twists aplenty, and clearly was not bluffing, considering the positive word-of-mouth.
Overseas Weapons earned $27.5M from 72 markets for a $70M estimated global total. IMAX global on the picture was $17.1M, with $6.2M of that from North America, representing 15% of the box office here.
Weapons – Opening Weekend
Top Ten Overseas Markets
UK | $3.6M
Mexico | $2.7M
France | $2M
Australia | $1.8M
Spain | $1.6M
Saudi Arabia | $1.2M
Germany | $1.2M
Brazil | $1M
Indonesia | $916K
United Arab Emirates | $889K
2. Freakier Friday
Walt Disney Pictures | NEW
$29M 3-Day Domestic Opening Weekend | $44.5M Global Total
Despite a nearly 800 screen advantage over Weapons, the Disney legacy sequel Freakier Friday arrived in second place with $29M on 3,975 screens for a $7,296 PSA. That’s behind our panel’s prediction range, but still stands as the best live-action comedy opening of the year ahead of last frame’s The Naked Gun ($16.8M). We said on Wednesday that Weapons had the potential to surge ahead and it did, although the audience crossover between the two films should not have been cannibalizing.
Here’s how the 3-Day looked, including $3.1M in Thursday previews…
- Friday – $12.7M
- Saturday – $9.1M
- Sunday – $7.2M
Critical was modest at 73% on RT, though audience score was 93% plus an “A” CinemaScore. General audiences gave Freakier Friday a 4.5 out of 5 via PostTrak polling, although the parent group gave it 5 out of 5, indicating a nostalgia boost from those who remember the 2003 movie. The audience was heavily scaled towards female with 74% to 26% male. The biggest age grouping was 25-34 (the audience that would have been 3-12 in 2003) at a whopping 32%, while current teens only made up 7%.
This performance is a bit of a disappointment considering this was a brand name that straddled generations, going back not just to the remake in 2003 but the Jodie Foster original from 1976, a previous TV remake from 1995, and a TV musical from 2018. However, the body swap genre has been devalued in recent years with underperformers like The Change-Up, Freaky, or the Netflix movie Family Switch. Although Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan have both been on the upswing in recent years, having them anchor a kids’ movie for a newer generation didn’t move the needle enough to win the weekend.
On the international side of things, Freakier Friday launched softly in 85% of the international footprint with $15.5M from 46 overseas markets. Some Asian territories like Vietnam, Korea and Japan are still to come. The Top 3 markets were Mexico ($2.8M), the UK ($2.4M), and Australia ($1.4M), which were the only territories to post anything above a million dollars. The 2003 Freaky Friday earned less than a third of its global take of $160.8M from overseas.
Other Notable Performances
Angel Studios’ Sketch debuted on the charts at #10 with $2.5M in 2,157 theaters for a $1,172 PSA, with a grand total of $5M since opening Wednesday to circumvent this week’s competition. Starring Tony Hale, the horror comedy about monsters from a little girl’s sketchbook who come to life has earned great reviews (97% on RT) as well as an “A-” CinemaScore.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps dropped from #1 to #3 this frame with $15.5M in 3600 locations with another steep -60% fall to bring domestic total to $230.4M. It will soon pass Doctor Strange‘s $232.6M domestic take from nearly a decade ago. Overseas kept pace with $17.5M in 52 territories for a $434.2M global haul so far, stretching past Shang-Chi‘s domestic ($224.5M) and global ($432.2M) totals. Meanwhile, WB’s Superman is on track to beat Guardians of the Galaxy‘s $333.7M domestic with a current $331.2M, as well as the first Iron Man‘s $584.8M WW with $578.8M. On the DC front Superman just beat BvS’ $330.3M.
Universal’s Jurassic World Rebirth is on the precipice of crossing the coveted $800M mark with an estimated $799,984,000 in worldwide grosses, maintaining a solid foothold as the fourth biggest global grosser of the year. Domestically, it made $4.7M this frame to take the North American total to $326.8M. It is now one of the few summer blockbusters to be unambiguously in the black, even with Superman surpassing it domestically.
Next Weekend
A trio of mid-size movies come to the multiplex next week starting with Nobody 2, featuring the return of Bob Odenkirk’s murder machine from the 2021 film which only grossed a modest $57.5M WW during the tail end of the pandemic. Lionsgate is giving Sydney Sweeney’s crime drama Americana a theatrical bow, over two years after debuting to good reviews at SXSW in 2023. Finally, director Spike Lee and star Denzel Washington bring their fifth collaboration to the screen with Highest 2 Lowest, a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low, which Apple is giving a short run in theaters before sending it to their streamer on September 5.
Sunday Studio Estimates | Weekend 32 – 2025
Total 3-Day Domestic Gross: $130,983,092 | (-17% vs 2024)
| Title | Weekend Estimate | % Change | Locations | Location Change | PSA | Domestic Total | Week | Distributor |
| Weapons | $42,500,000 | 3,202 | $13,273 | 42,500,000 | 1 | Warner Bros. | ||
| Freakier Friday | $29,000,000 | 3,975 | $7,296 | 29,000,000 | 1 | Walt Disney | ||
| The Fantastic Four: First Steps | $15,500,000 | -60% | 3,600 | -525 | $4,306 | 230,412,709 | 3 | Walt Disney |
| The Bad Guys 2 | $10,400,000 | -53% | 3,860 | 8 | $2,694 | 43,409,000 | 2 | Universal |
| The Naked Gun | $8,375,000 | -50% | 3,363 | 19 | $2,490 | 33,010,000 | 2 | Paramount Pi… |
| Superman | $7,800,000 | -43% | 2,920 | -617 | $2,671 | 331,243,000 | 5 | Warner Bros. |
| Jurassic World Rebirth | $4,700,000 | -46% | 2,691 | -549 | $1,747 | 326,800,000 | 6 | Universal |
| F1: The Movie | $2,835,000 | -32% | 1,351 | -673 | $2,098 | 178,581,000 | 7 | Warner Bros. |
| Together | $2,600,000 | -62% | 2,225 | -77 | $1,169 | 17,210,662 | 2 | Neon |
| Sketch | $2,527,285 | 2,157 | $1,172 | 5,018,691 | 1 | Angel Studios | ||
| I Know What You Did Last Summer | $800,000 | -69% | 1,105 | -1,198 | $724 | 31,405,000 | 4 | Sony Pictures |
| Smurfs | $475,000 | -74% | 813 | -1,482 | $584 | 30,277,000 | 4 | Paramount Pi… |
| My Mother’s Wedding | $432,000 | 402 | $1,075 | 432,000 | 1 | Vertical Ent… | ||
| How to Train Your Dragon | $430,000 | -67% | 600 | -859 | $717 | 261,572,000 | 9 | Universal |
| It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley | $400,000 | 125 | $3,200 | 400,000 | 1 | Magnolia Pic… | ||
| Eddington | $165,553 | -67% | 189 | -376 | $876 | 10,005,877 | 4 | A24 |
| CatVideoFest 2025 | $143,327 | -68% | 78 | -121 | $1,838 | 680,122 | 2 | Oscilloscope… |
| Lilo & Stitch | $132,000 | -73% | 155 | -295 | $852 | 421,624,778 | 12 | Walt Disney |
| Elio | $123,000 | -64% | 190 | -385 | $647 | 72,852,771 | 8 | Walt Disney |
| Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning | $104,000 | -58% | 100 | -81 | $1,040 | 197,350,000 | 12 | Paramount Pi… |
| Sorry, Baby | $68,291 | -63% | 106 | -145 | $644 | 2,298,019 | 7 | A24 |
| Cloud | $58,300 | -32% | 58 | 22 | $1,005 | 270,310 | 4 | Janus Films |
| Materialists | $21,390 | -52% | 20 | -25 | $1,070 | 36,484,440 | 9 | A24 |
| Boys Go to Jupiter | $15,000 | 1 | $15,000 | 15,000 | 1 | Cartuna |
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