It was a big weekend for horror at the box office and another important one for Warner Bros. Despite suffering some major misfires last year, WB has been on an absolute tear in recent months, with director Zach Cregger's "Weapons" now serving as the latest success in a big string of hits. This one, however, is an original horror movie that managed to come out on top despite facing competition in the form of the family-friendly "Freakier Friday" from Disney.
"Weapons" opened to $43.5 million domestically.
That was well above pre-release estimates, which had it in the $40 million range, with "Freakier Friday" expected to pull in at least $40 million. It sort of went the other way, with "Freakier Friday" doing $29 million. In any case, both movies were wins relative to their budgets, but WB also gets to claim another number one movie following "Superman," "F1," "Final Destination Bloodlines," "Sinners," and "A Minecraft Movie." That's one heck of a run.
As for "Weapons," it also pulled in $28.3 million overseas (a stellar number for an American horror movie), giving it a $71.8 million global start. Even against a production budget in the $40 million range, that's a great result, with the needle pointing upwards. The sky might be the limit here.
So, what went so right for Cregger's second solo feature directorial effort? How did Warner Bros. manage to sell an original movie so effectively? We're going to look at the biggest reasons why "Weapons" killed it at the box office on opening weekend. Let's get into it.
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Weapons Arrived To Stellar Reviews
Good reviews don't always push a movie over the top, but, in this case, it's impossible to deny that the downright effusively positive response to "Weapons" was a major factor. Cregger's second solo feature directorial effort currently sits at a stellar 95% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the second-best-reviewed studio horror movie of the year behind only Ryan Coogler's "Sinners." It also earned A- CinemaScore, which is exceedingly rare for a horror film. That suggests word of mouth will be very strong in the weeks to come.
In his near-perfect review of "Weapons" for /Film, Chris Evangelista praised Cregger's latest as "a twisted, funny, and scary suburban nightmare." He's apparently not alone in his assessment. That buzz helped carry the film to a bigger-than-expected opening day and once people started raving about it online, it helped bring out more moviegoers who might have otherwise just stayed on the couch. This movie very much avoided the "wait to stream" curse, which is no small thing for an original flick of any kind in 2025.
With a relative lack of major new releases coming our way in August, this movie now has the potential to hang around for weeks to come, giving this great buzz the runway to do its thing on a longer timeline.
Warner Bros. Marketed Weapons Perfectly
For as much heat as Warner Bros. took for flops like "Joker: Folie à Deux," it's tough to argue against what the regime led by Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy have been able to accomplish this year. To that end, they helped lead a pitch-perfect marketing campaign for "Weapons" -- one that managed to keep the movie's biggest secrets under wraps. Instead, they gave audiences just enough to make them curious, yet not so much that Cregger's twisty ride lost its punch. And anyone who has seen it in a packed theater can probably tell you, it indeed packs a punch.
Dating back to the first, mysterious teaser trailer for "Weapons" in April, WB leaned on intrigue and the central mystery surrounding a bunch of missing kids, as well as bizarre imagery, like the clocks at 2:17 or a kid in a dark classroom with makeup on his face. There is so much concern around getting people out to movies these days that studios will show just about everything they can to entice prospective ticket buyers. In this case, De Luca, Abdy, and their team wisely went the other way with it. From raising more questions than answers to great posters and everything in between, the marketing very effectively got people in the door for this one.
Weapons Had Very Little Direct Competition
Even though it had to open against "Freakier Friday," the fact of the matter is that "Weapons" had very little by way of direct competition. In the horror space, NEON's "Together" was in its second weekend of release but made just $2.6 million, landing all the way at number nine on the charts. Elsewhere, "I Know What You Did Last Summer" had already fallen out of the top 10 after its disappointing opening, while "28 Years Later" is essentially out of theaters entirely now that its VOD run has gotten underway.
To whatever degree one wishes to consider "Jurassic World Rebirth" horror, even in that case, the movie is running out of steam in its sixth weekend, taking in $4.7 million. The larger point is, Cregger's follow-up to 2022's "Barbarian" was just about the only big name in town for horror fans. For sure, "Freakier Friday" was another big movie, but it was going for an entirely different audience and served as a nice bit of counter-programming. This sort of thing should happen more often, frankly.
Even if we want to go outside of horror though, Marvel Studios' "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" continues to fall rapidly from grace, pulling in just $15.5 million for another 60% drop this past weekend. It all boils down to Warner Bros. picking the perfect release date. In the end, "Weapons" scored the benefits of a summer launch without the steep competition that usually comes with it.
Weapons Managed To Become A Rare, Original Theatrical Event
One of the more unfortunate things that has happened to the box office in recent years is this notion that everything needs to be an event to become a hit. "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" were both events, but the Barbenheimer of it all turned into something else entirely. Even a film along the lines of "F1" was effectively sold using the marketing byline "You need to see these racing scenes on the biggest screen possible." Heck, Universal is selling tickets to Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" a full year early just to event-ize the whole thing as quickly as possible.
Keeping all of that in mind, just being a damn good horror movie often isn't enough. Despite the deck being stacked against it in that sense, Warner Bros. still managed to sell "Weapons" as being an event. Was it an event because people wanted to understand the mystery behind the whole thing? Did it become an event because people wanted to be scared in a theater together? Was it merely a matter of everyone wanting to have a water cooler moment involving the film of the moment? Either way, an original horror movie from a rising filmmaker managed to do what few movies can do these days. That's no small thing.
Zach Cregger Has The Goods
The biggest X factor in all of this is Zach Cregger himself. In the span of just two movies, he's asserted himself as a majorly valuable voice in Hollywood. He's not altogether unlike Jordan Peele, who proved to be a generational talent after the success of "Get Out" and "Us" back-to-back. I'm not saying "Zach Cregger is the next Jordan Peele," don't get it twisted. I am saying that he's asserted himself in a way few filmmakers can this early on in their careers as directors.
Cregger broke out in 2022 when "Barbarian," against all odds, topped the box office for Disney. It was an admittedly slow weekend, but the movie finished with $45 million against a $4.5 million budget and earned rave reviews. That got Hollywood's attention and a bidding war ensued over "Weapons," with Warner Bros. and New Line coming out on top.
It's one thing for a script to be good. It's another thing entirely to deliver on the promise of that script. Safe to say, Cregger did that in spades here. He's now two for two with his solo directorial efforts, having written those scripts personally as well. It's his ideas that are valuable. It's his point of view that is valuable. IP is limited. It can only go so far. Having a guy who can turn an original idea into a hit? That's gold that is hard to come by these days. Cregger has the goods, there's no doubt about it now.
"Weapons" is currently playing in theaters.
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Read the original article on SlashFilm.
