EXCLUSIVE: Here’s an eyebrow raiser in the wake of a zany box office season turned upside down by the actors strike, and ruled by Taylor Swift: Universal/Blumhouse‘s feature take of videogame, Five Nights at Freddy’s, is shaping up for an opening around $40M. That would be the second-best opening at the fall box office YTD after Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour‘s $92.8M start. The pic hits theaters and Peacock on Oct. 27.
Worst case, it’s in the $30M range. That said, there are some big numbers out there, but let’s not go overboard: A year ago tracking had Universal’s theatrical-day-and-date-Peacock release of Halloween Ends north of $50M. The Jamie Lee Curtis final installment in a trio of David Gordon Green-directed Halloween movies came in at $40M over three-days. Box office was certainly dented by the pic’s avail on Peacock, however, the streamer celebrated Halloween Ends as the most watched film or series ever on the platform for a weekend at the time.
The heat for Freddy‘s indicates we’re in a marketplace that’s clearly lacking marquee product outside of the female skewing Taylor Swift: Eras Tour. Working in Freddy’s favor in a marketplace where actors can’t promote due to the strike is the fact that it’s branded IP and it’s a genre movie. At $40M, Freddy’s is bigger than the start for Uni/Blumhouse/Morgan Creek’s $400M purchase of The Exorcist: Believer which saw a $26.4M opening weekend, currently counts a running total of $47M through Tuesday.
Freddy’s first choice with males and females under 25 is smoking, far north of Uncharted ($44M opening), 2022’s Scream ($30M), Halloween Ends, Insidious: Red Door ($33M) and M3GAN ($30.4M opening).
Directed by Emma Tammi from a screenplay by Tammi, Scott Cawthon and Seth Cuddeback, Five Night’s at Freddy’s, based on nine-year-old franchise, follows a troubled security guard, who begins working at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. During his first night on the job, he realizes that the night shift won’t be so easy to get through. Pretty soon he will unveil what actually happened at Freddy’s. The horror pic stars Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Lail, Kat Conner Sterling and Piper Rubio, with Mary Stuart Masterson and Matthew Lillard.