Scream, a relaunch of the 1996 cult classic of the same name, debuted atop the weekend domestic box office, dethroning Spider-Man: No Way Home after a four-week run at No. 1, Varietyreports.
Scream earned $30.6 million, and will likely hit $35 million over the four-day Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. The first-week totals are a major win for the team behind the latest entry in the slasher flick franchise since it cost them only $25 million to produce, and proves that there was an appetite for the film, despite an 11-year hiatus since Scream 4.
“They re-invigorated the franchise for pre-existing fans and introduced it to new generation of fans,” said Chris Aronson, Paramount’s domestic distribution chief. “We’ve heard anecdotally that people have seen the film more than once or are planning to see it multiple times.”
Spider-Man: No Way Home slipped to second after grossing $20.8 million over the weekend, and could push its four-day sum to $26 million. No Way Home also eclipsed the $700 million mark, making it the fourth-highest earning domestic film of all-time, trailing Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Avengers: Endgame, and Avatar.
IndieWire notes that this year’s four-day weekend box office figures reached $73 million, which is $10 million more than last year’s sum, but well short of the numbers moved prior to the pandemic.
But as Spider-Man proved, audiences are still willing to go to theaters despite the pandemic. The next big box office bang will likely go down in March, when the hugely anticipated The Batman hits theaters.
