According to early industry projections, next week's Scream has the potential to break the franchise's opening record over its 4-day weekend. When it comes to the state of the domestic box office, the outlook is very mixed. Recent weeks have seen grosses bolstered by the immense financial success of Spider-Man: No Way Home and the solidly-performing Sing 2. However, other releases have faltered amid rising COVID cases caused by the Omicron variant. Now there's much interest in seeing how the first new movies of 2022 will perform.
First up is Scream. Set to premiere in theaters on January 14, the fifth installment in the iconic slasher franchise is the biggest horror film to arrive since Halloween Kills debuted in October. Scream returns to the town of Woodsboro as a new Ghostface kicks off another reign of terror. The murders draw the attention of those involved with the original Ghostface: Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), Dewey Riley (David Arquette), and Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox). Aided by a new generation of potential victims (and killers), Sidney and the rest set out to find who is responsible.
Though Scream's financial prospects will become clearer next week, the early projections are pretty favorable. As noted by IndieWire, Scream is currently expected to open to a total within the $35 million-$40 million range. This is expected to be across 4 days, as the movie has the advantage of opening over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. For comparison, the previous Scream movies all opened to totals below $34 million; 2000's Scream 3 holds the record of $34.7 million. However, they didn't have 4-day weekends like the new film does.
Nevertheless, an opening in between $35 million and $40 million would be a positive start for Scream. Setting aside the fact that the last film in the franchise, 2011's Scream 4, opened to a mere $18.69 million, movies aimed at older audiences have struggled during the pandemic. Scream's appeal might skew a bit younger, and horror is a genre that has found some success (see: Halloween Kills, Candyman). Should Scream actually match these projections, it would offer an opening close to pre-pandemic standards.
Ultimately, this movie has two main obstacles: The pandemic, and franchise fatigue. With the former, there is still an Omicron surge sweeping the country that could impact those venturing out to theaters. As Spider-Man: No Way Home has shown, though, audiences who really want to see a particular movie will come out. As for the latter obstacle, there was waning interest in Scream around the fourth installment, as its lower box office numbers demonstrated. Reviews aren't out yet for the new film, but if they suggest this is a fresh, clever reinvention of the beloved franchise, Scream might pull through to be a major success. All will become clearer next week when Ghostface hits the multiplex.
Source: IndieWire
