UPDATE SATURDAY AM: Remember how we use to space horror movies out on the calendar? Not any more. Absence indeed makes the heart grow fonder and we have New Line’s Final Destination: Bloodlines via Warner Bros coming in with a massive $21M, the best opening day ever for the series, on its way to a franchise best 3-day of $46M. There is a shot at $50M, however, as we all know, horror films are frontloaded. But this has a B+ CinemaScore, high praise for a horror film.
By the way, this always happens when vintage horror properties are rebooted after some time: They just come in mega higher when they have not just a high gloss, but possess an authentic homage to the roots of the original, i.e. Nightmare on Elm Street reboot in 2010 opened to $32.9M and 2005’s Amityville Horror with Ryan Reynolds opened to $23.5M, and then of course there’s the Jamie Lee Curtis reprise Halloween from 2018 debuting to a franchise best of $76.2M.
That is except for Warner Bros’ fifth weekend of Sinners which is still seeing $15M, -32%, after a $4.4M Friday. Disney’s Thunderbolts* is a tad ahead of Sinners in the No. 2 spot with $4.3M and around $15.5M, -52%, for a running cume of $154.4M.
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Amazon MGM Studios’ Accountant 2 is looking to pencil out Lionsgate and Live Nation’s Hurry Up Tomorrow for fifth place, $4.6M to $3M-$3.6M per Lionsgate. Average ticket price for Hurry Up Tomorrow is $12.91 which means admissions are ranging from 232K to 278K. The Weeknd’s recent Glendale, AZ tour stop on May 9 pulled in 58K, but reportedly made more money at $8.7M with tickets at an average price of $150.
Final Destination is leaning 52% men with the 25-34 demo the biggest at 34%, and the over 35 group only 27%, so it’s young. The pic is playing strongest in the South, South Central and Midwest with the Regal Times Square NYC the best location in the nation with close to $82k through yesterday.
Hurry Up Tomorrow gets a C- enough to slow it down. Realize, and we’ll talk about this more throughout the weekend, that the same people who’ll spend hundreds of dollars to see any major performing artist aren’t the same crowd who’ll rush to the theater. Remember Madonna with her big screen debut Desperately Seeking Susan back in 1985? That didn’t exactly knock it out of the park with a $1.5M opening in No. 14 and she was huge at the time. And then remember Madonna again in 1987’s Who’s That Girl which opened a tad higher at $2.5M in No. 7, but by the time the movie ended its run at $7M, nobody wanted to know who that girl was anymore. For the Weeknd, Hurry Up Tomorrow was something of an advertisement for his After Hours Til Dawn tour as well as the album which dropped earlier this year ala Prince with 1984’s Purple Rain. But the difference is that movie was magnetic; the singles everywhere on the radio and MTV during the late summer; you had to see Purple Rain. Talk about a hit: The movie opened to $7.7M and had a near 9x multiple in its initial run with a domestic take of $68.3M. That 360 marketing campaign worked. But then back to the whole notion that moviegoers and concertgoers are two separate types of consumers, Prince’s follow-up Under the Cherry Moon sunk with a final $10M domestic gross.
Women bought tickets to Hurry Up Tomorrow at 55%, with the 18-24 demo the pic’s biggest at 44%, and 42% Latino and Hispanic, 28% Caucasian, 15% Black and 7% Asian. West coast is overindexing on The Weeknd movie at 33% (vs. 24%) with AMC the Grove the pic’s best venue with $15K.
Total weekend for all films is coming in at $102.8M, +6% from a year ago when Paramount’s Ryan Reynolds movie If ruled with a $33.7M opening.
1.) Final Destination: Bloodlines (WB) 3,523 theaters, Fri $21M, 3-day $46M/Wk 1
2) Thunderbolts* (Dis) 3,960 (-370) theaters, Fri $4.2M, 3-day $15.5M (-52%), Total $154.4M/Wk 3
3.) Sinners (WB) 3,518 (+16) theaters, Fri $4.4M, 3-day $15M (-32%), Total $240.3M/Wk 5
4.) A Minecraft Movie (WB) 3,357 (-111) theaters, Fri $1.3M, 3-day $5.9M (-23%), Total $416.6M/Wk 7
5.) Accountant 2 (AMZ) 3,229 (-173) theaters, Fri $1.2M, 3-day $4.5M (-32%), Total $58.7M/Wk 4
6.) Hurry Up Tomorrow (LG) 2,020 theaters, Fri $2.3M, 3-day $3M-$3.6M/Wk 1
7.) Clown in a Cornfield (IFC) 2,277 theaters, Fri $415K, 3-day $1.4M (-62%), Total $6.4M/Wk 2
8.) Friendship (A24) 60 (+54) theaters, Fri $642K, 3-day $1.4M (+215%), Total $2M/Wk 2
9.) Until Dawn (Sony) 1,706 (-759) theaters Fri $220K, 3-day $750K (-62%), Total $19.5M/Wk 4
10.) The Amateur (20th) 850 (-350) theaters, Fri $190K, 3-day $700K (-40%), Total $40.1M/Wk 6
UPDATE, FRIDAY AFTERNOON: Who says two horror movies can’t live in the same space? Warner Bros/New Line’s Final Destination: Bloodlines is seeing a $20 million Friday, including last night’s $5.5M in previews, for a $43M three-day gross at 3,523 theaters. As we told you previously, that would be the best opening ever for a Final Destination movie.
The studio’s Sinners, meanwhile, is eyeing a fifth weekend of $15M, off 32% from last week.
Even though Sinners is in third place as of this point, damn, an unprecedented hold for a R-rated horror movie one again, this time $500,000 more than The Blair Witch Project‘s fifth session of $14.5M. Running cume by Sunday will stand around $240.3M. Sinners has 70MM Imax auditoriums this week, and its overall theater count is 3,518.
In second place for this frame is Disney’s Thunderbolts* with a third weekend of $16M at 3,960, -50%, for a running cume by Sunday of $154.8M. It’s 14% ahead of Eternals at the same point in time.
Fourth is Warner Bros/Legendary’s A Minecraft Movie with a $3.3M Friday, a seventh weekend of $5.6M, off 27%, and running total of $416.3M.
Fifth is Lionsgate and Live Nation’s Hurry Up Tomorrow with a low $3.3M-$4.7M opening after a $2.5M Friday including $1.65M previews. Interesting to note that The Weeknd’s May 9 Glendale, AZ tour stop at State Farm Stadium pulled in a reported $8.7M alone — 85% more than the expected opening weekend four the four-time Grammy winner’s movie here.
UPDATE after previous EXCLUSIVE: Warner is reporting $5.5 million in previews for New Line’s Final Destination: Bloodlines, well ahead of what we were spotting. That’s ahead of Sinners‘ $4.7M. It’s also $100,000 higher than the previews for Conjuring spinoff The Nun which went on to do a $22M Friday and $53M three-day opening frame. Wowza Warners.
Very strong PostTrak exits from the fan crowd last night with 4 stars and 69% definite recommend, skewing 60% men.
No one is going to be hurrying up to Lionsgate/Live Nation’s Hurry Up Tomorrow, which is getting a 1/2 star and a 34% definite recommend. Thursday previews were $350K, but when added into early access fan events of $1.3M, total previews are $1.65M. Again, the whole movie is part of a three-point media blitz by The Weeknd timed to the kickoff of his North American After Hours Til Dawn Tour (which is set to be the year’s highest-grossing concert tour in the U.S. with $400M) as well as his album that dropped at the beginning and includes much of the music from the movie.
More updates as they come.
EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros’ box office bonanza continues this weekend as New Line’s horror reboot Final Destination: Bloodlines is stabbing around $4.6M in Thursday night previews according to sources. That figure is just $100K shy of the studio’s Sinners‘ previews that pic turning into a $48M opening. The forecast on Final Destination 6 here was $35M-$40M heading into the weekend, but with excellent reviews and audience response on Rotten Tomatoes at respectively 93% and 90%, don’t be shocked if those forecasts are left in the dust for something greater. Showtimes on Thursday began at 3pm. Warner Bros didn’t return request for comment on Thursday night’s ticket sales.
We’ve come a long way in the preview game: the last Final Destination was in 2011 and did $450K off midnight shows which yielded an $18M start. Previews for Bloodlines are also ahead of NEON’s The Monkey, which did $1.9M before a $14M opening; another notable horror bow this year to date. The best opening in the series belongs to 2009’s The Final Destination with a $27.4M 3-day. As we previously mentioned, Bloodlines will score a record opening for the New Line R-rated franchise.
Bloodlines will rep the 4th No. 1 opening for Warner Bros this year after Mickey 17, A Minecraft Movie and Sinners. Through 20 weekends, and counting Bloodlines, Warner Bros has notched No. 1 six times so far at the 2025 domestic box office.
Directors on Bloodlines are Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein off a screenplay by Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor based on characters by Jeffrey Reddick.
Also opening this weekend is the Live Nation, Lionsgate release Hurry Up Tomorrow starring The Weeknd and Jenna Ortega. Speaking of horror, at 16% on Rotten Tomatoes, critics covered their eyes. However, audiences were far more generous at 75%. We’ll see where that one goes, the $15M Trey Edward Shults directed movie forecasted to be in the mid to high single digits. As we mentioned, it’s a distribution deal for Lionsgate, so no skin off their nose.
Disney/MCU’s Thunderbolts* and Warner’s Sinners are expected to hold quite well. The Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, David Harbour, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Hannah John-Kamen ensemble is expected to do around $19M in weekend 3 while the Ryan Coogler directed, Michael B. Jordan starring vampire pic is looking to be around $15M.
