LOS ANGELES – Twenty-seven years after the first Scream movie raised goosebumps, a sixth instalment opened atop the North American box office this weekend, taking in an estimated US$44.5 million (S$59.9 million), industry watcher Exhibitor Relations said on Sunday.
The movie also broke opening records of the film franchise, beating 2000’s Scream 3, which took in US$34.7 million.
The fifth Scream film, released in January 2022, opened to US$30 million domestically, which was considered impressive for the pandemic era, according to entertainment outlet The Hollywood Reporter.
That was “an excellent opening for an elite horror movie”, said analyst David A. Gross, and it came as the film world’s glitterati were converging on Hollywood for the evening’s Oscars presentations.
A Paramount/Spyglass Media product, Scream VI again combines mystery and black comedy.
This edition stars Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega and Skeet Ulrich. It is the first in the series not to star Neve Campbell, who failed to reach terms with the studio.
Last week’s top film, MGM’s boxing drama Creed III, came in second, with a take estimated at US$27.2 million for the Friday-through-Sunday period.
Michael B. Jordan directs – his first time in that role – while again playing title character Adonis Creed.
In third place was 65, a new sci-fi thriller from Sony and Columbia Pictures, at US$12.3 million.
Adam Driver plays a pilot whose spaceship crashes on an unknown planet, which turns out to be the Earth of 65 million years ago, and has to protect himself and a young passenger from dinosaur attack as well as from a huge asteroid that is about to extinguish much of life on Earth.
Marvel and Disney’s Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania placed fourth, at US$7 million. Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly star as the winged title characters.
And in fifth place was Universal’s horror comedy Cocaine Bear, at US$6.2 million. Keri Russell plays a woman hunted through the Tennessee woods by a bear that had come upon, and unwisely consumed, a stash of drugs. AFP
