‘Scream’ Tops ‘Scream 4’ As ‘Sing 2’ Nears $270 Million Worldwide

In weekend box office news that isn’t about Spider-Man: No Way Home ($11.6 million in weekend seven for a $735.5 million domestic cume), Spyglass and Paramount’s Scream took full advantage of a total lack of big new releases this weekend. The R-rated slasher sequel earned another $7.35 million (-40%) in weekend three for a $62.139 million 17-day total. That’s a better drop than the last two Scream sequels (-47% and -69%) and not far off from the 34% third-weekend drop (over Christmas weekend 1997) of Scream 2. The $24 million flick should triple its budget domestically, and is currently past the $98 million global total of Scream 4 with a new $106 million global cume.

Among R-rated movies released amid the pandemic (after Bad Boys for Life, Birds of Prey and The Invisible Man in January/February 2020), it has passed Candyman ($61.5 million) to become the third-biggest such release behind The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It ($65 million) and Halloween Kills ($92 million). If it continues as such, it should end its run with around $75 million domestic and $125 million (5.2 times its production budget) worldwide. And, yes, it’s very unusual, if not outright unprecedented, for a franchise to come back from an unloved sequel (Scream 3) and a commercially disastrous follow-up (Scream 4) to return to at least an approximation (inflation aside) of its former glory.  

Universal and Illumination’s Sing 2 continues to be the Jumanji 2/Tomorrow Never Dies of the Christmas 2021 season. The $85 million jukebox musical sequel earned another $4.8 million (-17%) sixth weekend gross. That’ll give the Matthew McConaughey/Scarlett Johansson/Reese Witherspoon/Taron Egerton/Bono dramedy a $134.5 million domestic cume. Meanwhile, it opened with a terrific $9.3 million in the UK and Ireland, the biggest pandemic-era animated opening and the third biggest for anything since 1917 in January 2020. It earned $17.4 million overseas this weekend, just below even Spider-Man: No Way Home ($21.1 million), for a new $133 million overseas and $268 million worldwide cume. All this while existing on PVOD for the last few weeks.  

Universal’s Redeeming Love (a straight distribution deal, natch) earned $1.85 million (-48%) in weekend two. That’ll give D.J. Caruso’s faith-based romance a $6.53 million ten-day cume. Skipping around for a moment, last weekend’s other newbie, The King’s Daughter (which had been sitting on a shelf since 2014), earned $435,000 (-40%) in its second weekend for a $1.471 million ten-day cume. 20th Century Studios’ The King’s Man, which dropped just 2% this weekend, has earned $34 million domestic and $114.4 million worldwide. The 355 will have $13.1 million by day 24, having entered the PVOD marketplace on Friday. Lionsgate’s American Underdog earned $1.225 million (+4%) in weekend six for a new $24.8 million domestic cume.  

Sony’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife will earn $770,000 (+18%) in weekend 11 for a new $128.06 million cume, inching closer to the unadjusted $128.35 million cume of Ghostbusters: Answer the Call. I’m guessing they’ll drag it over the finish line as they did with Venom: Let There Be Carnage (which passed Venom earlier this week). Licorice Pizza, which will likely end up in the Oscar race next month, will have another strong hold in weekend ten with $691,187 (+5%) for a new $11.816 million cume. That would be great if the Cooper Hoffman/Alana Haim coming-of-age dramedy didn’t cost $40 million, but I’ll argue that MGM didn’t get into the Paul Thomas Anderson business for short-term commercial reasons.  

West Side Story earned $614,000 (-14%) in its eighth weekend. That’ll give the $100 million musical re-adaptation/remake a $36 million domestic and $60 million worldwide cume. That’s the third biggest “awards season release” behind Dune ($107 million/$398 million) and House of Gucci ($53 million/$151 million). Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley got a black-and-white reissue (+713 theaters) in weekend seven, with the critically acclaimed but commercially ignored film noir earning $534,000 (+133%) for a $10.35 million domestic and $14.9 million worldwide cume. The film arrives on Hulu and HBO Max on February 1. Belle will earn $340,000 (-40%) for a $3.4 million 17-day cume. Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers will crack $1 million domestic in weekend six.