‘Scream’ Hitting Loud Pitch With $36M 4-Day, ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ Surging Past ‘Black Panther’
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SATURDAY AM UPDATE: We can complain about omicron. But I wouldn’t necessarily complain that the variant is spoiling the top films at the box office, as Paramount/Spyglass Media’s Scream had a robust first day of $13.3M (including $3.5M Thursday previews) on its way to a $31.5M 3-day and $36M 4-day at 3,664 theaters.
That 4-day beats Mama, the previous high opening for a horror movie over MLK, and overall, Scream‘s 3-day isn’t far from its previous sequel opening highs, Scream 2, which did $32.9M back in 1997, and Scream 3, which made $34.7M back in 2000. A great start to 2022 for Paramount on the big screen. EntTelligence box office analytics firm reports that 1M people have watched Scream so far, including 250K from Thursday night previews.
Chalk up the success here to the alchemy of paying homage to what’s old with the new: The fresh blood boarding Scream, i.e. scribes James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick and filmmakers Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, didn’t operate in a vacuum when approaching a reboot/sequel of Scream. They brought in the consigliere services of the IP’s architect Kevin Williamson, who serves as EP here. Paramount believed that the film would play best to a crowd, and kept it relegated to the big screen, versus a day-and-date hybrid approach with its streamer Paramount+.
Social Media corp RelishMix beams about the advance weekend buzz for Scream, “With a date that was set in stone, unchanged and locked from one year ago, Scream opens solo with positive leaning convo to a potential Covid-proof audience. Fans are shouting on social for Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, Ghost Face and David Arquette’s character Dewey as fans are ready for a wild and entertaining distraction into the New Year of cinematic madness. Negative and Covid related chatter runs thin.”
The pic’s campaign across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram counted nine video drops in a week, with YouTube materials clocking close to 60M views. From the last installment 11 years ago, the social media universe for Scream is now at 126.4M which is 27% above the horror genre norm. By comparison, Halloween Kills had a SMU of 145.1M (opened at $49.4M) and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It counted a SMU at 131.1M (opened at $24.1M). “In other words, social stats are in the ballpark of recent horror films,” reports RelishMix.
Scream‘s actors are well activated on social media with Cox at 15.6M followers, Dylan Minnette at 7.9M, Jenna Ortega at 6.8M, Melissa Barrera with over 1M, David Arquette at 468K, and Neve Campbell at 418K. “All are indexing exceptionally well, as fans can see how much fun the cast is having in promotion as well as making the film,” assesses RelishMix.
Barrera gets a call from Cox, this video earning over 2.5M views on the Friends alum’s Instagram:
The hashtag #12Screamsfortheholidays became a push prior to the pic’s launch.
Scream received a B+ CinemaScore, which ties with its highest grade from 1997’s Scream 2. Scream 3 and 4 respectively earned a B and B-, while the first wasn’t monitored by PostTrak as it was a platform release. Comscore/Screen Engine PostTrak audiences giving the movie a 79% positive and a 61% recommend. The pic played best in the East, West, and South Central, with 20 locations, we hear, grossing a $25K+ first day, which is very good. Audience leaned 56% male, with close to 80% under 34 years old, indicating that the movie is appealing toward a younger generation. The largest demo was 25-34 year olds at 36%. Diversity draw was 38% Caucasian, 36% Latino and Hispanic, 14% Black, & 12% Asian/other. Scream is still being released in Canada theatrically, even though cinemas are shuttered in the Quebec and Ontario provinces.
Typically, horror movies are front-loaded, and hopefully there’s enough momentum here for Scream to hit its current opening projections or go higher.
Sony
Sony/Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home will click to $705M by the end of the holiday weekend, which would make it the fourth-highest movie of all-time at the domestic box office, besting Black Panther‘s $700M. Sony reports a $5.1M Friday for the Jon Watts-directed title at 3,925 sites for a $21.4M 3-day, $26.75M 4-day.
Gkids
GKIDs’ Belle posted $727K on Friday at 1,326 theaters. The outlook for the Mamoru Hosoda directed and Studio Chizu animated movie is $1.55M over 3-days and $1.9M over 4-days. Belle played best in the West and Mountain regions and notched an 86% audience score on PostTrak with a 63% recommend. Men were dominant at 55%, with 83% under 34-years-old and the biggest demo being 25-34 at 39%. Critics loved Belle at 95% Certified Fresh with the diversity draw being 39% Caucasian, 30% Asian/other, 19% Latino and Hispanic and 12% Black.
Overall, we continue to see a situation of “Haves” and “Have-Nots” at the domestic box office, with adult-skewing titles still leaner than event films. Total ticket receipts over four days are only expected to be $92.3M over 4-days, which is 55% off from MLK weekend 2020’s $205.3M before the exhibition shutdown. That’s also when Bad Boys for Life delivered the 4-day holiday’s second-best opening with a $73M start.
Weekend estimates:
Title/theaters/Fri-Sat-Sun/3-day (% chg)/Total/Weekend no.
1.) Scream (Par) 3,664 theaters Fri $13.3M/3-day $31.5M, 4-day $36M/Wk 1
2.) Spider-Man: No Way Home(Sony) 3,925 (-87) theaters, Fri $5.1M (-39%) /3-day $21.4M (-34%)/4-day $26.75M/Total: $705M/Wk 4
3.) Sing 2 (Uni/Ill) 3,581 (-132) theaters, Fri $1.79M (-33%)/3-day $8.56M (-26%)/4-day $11.4M/Total: $122.5M/Wk 4
4.) The King’s Man (20th/Dis) 2,510 (-530) theaters Fri $639K (-29%)/3-day $2.4M (-27%)/4-day $2.9M /Total $29.3M/Wk 4
5.) The 355 (Uni/FilmNation) 3,145 theaters, Fri $660K (-62%)/3-day $2.39M (-48%)/4-day $2.87M /Total $8.9M/Wk 2
6.) American Underdog (LG) 2,394 (-335) theaters, Fri $505K (-30%)/3-day: $1.84M (-21%)/4 day $2.26M/Total: $21.7M/Wk 4
7.) Belle (GKIDS) 1,326 theaters Fri $727K/3-day $1.55M/4-day $1.9M/Wk 1
8.) West Side Story (20th/Dis) 1,460 (-830) theaters, Fri $238K (-38%)/3-day $925K (-34%)/4-day $1.15M/Total $33.9M/Wk 6
9.) Licorice Pizza (UAR) 772 theaters, Fri $252K (-11%)/3-day $915K (-7%)/4-day $1.1M/Total $9.8M/Wk 8
10.) Matrix Resurrections (WB) 1,725 (-1,150) theaters, Fri $220K (-55%) /3-day $881K (-52%)/4 day $1.08M/Total: $36.08M/Wk 4
FRIDAY AM UPDATE: Paramount-Spyglass Media’s Scream made $3.5M from Thursday night previews that began at 7 p.m. at roughly 3,000 theaters.
That’s a healthy take for a horror movie during the pandemic, pacing behind Halloween Kills and A Quiet Place PArt II‘s Thursday nights, which were $4.8M each, and not too far behind pre-pandemic MLK weekend thriller Glass, which did $3.7M in 2019. Glass saw a three-day of $40M, but don’t go comping Scream to that M. Night Shyamalan title yet, given the erratic moviegoer attendance during the pandemic.
Jenna Ortega in “Scream.” Paramount
The reboot-sequel directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett arguably is the only marquee draw until Feb. 4, along with whatever remaining dollars Spider-Man: No Way Home rakes in; that’s when Lionsgate has Roland Emmerich’s Moonfall and Paramount has Jackass Forever. The hope is that Scream, with a Rotten Tomatoes fresh critics score of 76% and audience score of 90%, can screech past anything in the $20M over four-days. That would be a nice start over the holiday in a pandemic marketplace; the highest opening over MLK weekend for a horror movie being Universal’s Mama, which did $32.1M in 2013. The biggest opening for a horror movie during the pandemic belongs to Universal/Blumhouse/Miramax’s Halloween Kills, which did $49.4M back in October. That was with a day-and-date Peacock in-home availability built in, but also when more blockbusters were back-to-back in cinemas. Halloween Kills fell short of $100M with $92M stateside.
Kevin Williamson On ‘Scream’s Fresh Blood, Wes Craven & Possible ‘Dawson’s Creek’ Reboot : ‘Hero Nation’ Podcast
Paramount and Spyglass Media co-financed Scream at $24M before P&A.
In addition last night, Paramount held a Scream Opening Night Fan Event at select theaters nationwide, which featured a live Q&A with actor David Arquette, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett and Scream executive producer and creator Kevin Williamson, as well as a pre-taped talent intro and extended bonus content featuring the new cast with behind-the-scenes footage. That event took place at 5 p.m. PT, 7 p.m. CT and 8 p.m. ET at participating theaters.
Sony
Sony/Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home took in $2.1M on Thursday at 4,012 theaters, -4% from Wednesday taking its cume through the end of week 4 to $677.95M. The Jon Watts-directed movie will become the fifth-highest-grossing movie at the domestic box office today, passing 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War, which counts $678.8M. Disney/Marvel’s Black Panther ranks as the fourth-biggest movie stateside with $700.4M.
In second place was Illumination/Universal’s Sing 2 with an estimated $555K on Thursday, +3%, for a running total through the end of Week 3 of $111M.
The other wide release this weekend is Gkids’ Belle at 1,300 locations. The movie opened Wednesday in 130 theaters, has expanded to 995 sites and counts a two day total of $335K. Pic will play in 40 Imax auditoriums this weekend as well as venues such as The Landmark in LA, BAM in NYC and The Roxie in San Francisco.
Scream 5 Rian Johnson Reference Explained by Co-Writer
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This story contains SPOILERS about the new “Scream” film.
Like any great “Scream” movie, the fifth film in the franchise is movie-literate and wildly self-aware. The new film has fun with toxic fandom and the idea of a “requel,” or a movie that remakes the original film while pairing new characters with legacy, fan favorites — just like this film does and proudly wears on its sleeve.
But it also makes a sly reference to a real-life director whose own movie has become the poster child for attacks from toxic fans and the trend of requels: Rian Johnson, or as “Scream” refers to him, “The ‘Knives Out’ Guy.”
James Vanderbilt, one of the film’s co-writers along with Guy Busick and a producer on the film for his Project X Entertainment banner, explained to TheWrap why name-dropping Johnson in one of the film’s key scenes was “kind of too perfect.”
Fans of the “Scream” sequels know that there are a series of fake movies within the movies called the “Stab” franchise. The “Stab” films tell the true stories of Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), the Ghostface killers and the residents of Woodsboro.
The premise and running gag of the new “Scream” is that Hollywood has decided to make its latest “Stab” movie a “requel” and revert everything back to the original by bringing back the original characters. And to drive home the point even more, the new “Stab” movie is called quite simply, “Stab,” not unlike how “Scream” (2022) rips off the title of “Scream” (1996) or “Halloween” (2018) has the same name as “Halloween” (1978).
There’s only one big difference with this new “Stab” movie: people HATE it.
“We loved the idea that someone had made one that was not well received. Much like certain directors have made big IP movies that fandoms have rejected in an enormous way,” Vanderbilt explained. “There is a very tiny percentage of people who feel such an ownership over an IP and have such anger toward people that if they don’t do things exactly the way they want to, spew this [stuff], and that feels like something that didn’t exist 10 years ago.”
Rian Johnson of course directed “Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi,” which is a follow-up to one of the most famous requels, “The Force Awakens,” and was also the target of massive amounts of online vitriol from toxic fans. But Johnson also directed the eighth Star Wars film, and guess what “Stab” movie was up next in the franchise lineage? “Stab 8.”
“I think watching how people attacked him as a person was, oh we’re in new territory here,” Vanderbilt said. “In ‘Scream’ 1 they talk about Wes Carpenter movies, in ‘Scream 2’ they talk about Robert Rodriguez directed Stab. There is a great tradition of commenting on other filmmakers who are peers of the time, and that felt like a very natural thing. Rian directed this big IP that was divisive. We felt like if someone directed the ‘Stab’ movie and it were divisive, it would be fun if it were Rian.”
“Scream” breaks down the idea of a “requel” in a terrific scene where Jasmin Savoy-Brown, the film’s horror “expert,” explains the trend of soft remakes of a franchise as seen in everything from “Ghostbusters” to “Halloween” to “Star Wars” and beyond. The characters all seem to realize that the drama they’re playing out is its own requel story, and Vanderbilt had the goal of making a movie that he as a fan would most want to see and that could comment on where the movies and the horror genre specifically has gone in the last 10 years since “Scream 4.”
“The thing about the original ‘Scream’ was that it got to have its cake and eat it too. It deconstructed the slasher while also being a great slasher [film],” Vanderbilt said. “We wanted to deconstruct the requel while hopefully making a really great requel.”
Do You Like Scary Movies About Scary Movies Laughing at Scary Movies? Then You’ll Love the New ‘Scream’
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There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to successfully survive a horror movie: You can never have sex, never drink or do drugs, never say you’ll “be right back.” But there are also certain rules that characters have to adhere to in order to navigate a meta-horror movie, like: Be extremely well-versed in the rules of horror movies, especially the classic slashers (your Halloweens, your Friday the 13ths, your Nightmare on Elm Streets). You should be enough of a fan to recognize potentially stabby situations — don’t go in the basement or the woods! avoid bloody valentines, terror trains and prom nights! — but not so much of a fan that you put on creepy masks and murder your classmates. And if you’ve lived through a franchise’s first entry, make sure you watch the movies that exploit your “real-life” trauma playing within the movieverse you’re in, just in case art imitates life imitating art imitating…say, just how deep does this rabbit hole go?
A quarter of a century ago, Scream winked and nudged and butchered its way into pop culture by assuming folks were fluent enough in genre conventions to know how those movies worked. It’s a hell of a tightrope act that screenwriter Kevin Williamson and director Wes Craven nimbly tiptoed, balancing in-jokes for a generation raised on VCR horror binges while still delivering thrills, chills and adrenaline rushes. Even in a decade characterized by pomo self-consciousness and mondo meta virtuosity (the ’60s got Godard and Dylan, but the ’90s gave us Tarantino and Beck), this 1996 hit relied as much on a shared knowingness as it did that signature Ghostface mask. And when the series started inserting their own reflective rip-offs within the franchise itself. i.e. the Stab movies that dramatized those horrific teen massacres seen in Scream, you got a bonus M.C. Escher buzz — the joy of watching a slasher eat its own tail.
Fast-forward a few decades, and brand-name nostalgia is even bigger business; the nature of franchising and fandom, however, has changed. Scream 2022 is nothing if not extremely up-to-date, knowing very well that it’s re-entering a poposphere in which the conversation is less “how cool were those movies!?” and more “how can I keep permanently reliving my childhood?” After a suitably snarky update to the original opening — another phone call in which the voice of Roger L. Jackson sinisterly asks a babysitter if she like scary movies…only now they’re arguing about the merits of “elevated horror” — word goes out that there’s a new Ghostface killer in Woodsboro. A potential victim, Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega), ends up in the hospital. Her long-estranged sister, Sam (Melissa Barrera), rushes back to her old home town to take care of her. They both have a connection to that first wave of killings way back in the day, though only one of them knows it.
Tara’s high school friends, made up of the usual assortment of pop-savvy jocks, geeks, kooks and mall-goths, are ready to play amateur detectives and find out who’s behind the Gen-Z Ghostface masks. Ditto Richie (The Boys’ Jack Quaid), Sam’s boyfriend who’s along for the ride. Meanwhile, a visit to the ex-lawman Dewey Riley (David Arquette) after more bodies drop prompts him to reach out to both Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), now a bigshot TV anchor in New York, and former final-girl extraordinaire Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell). It’s around this point that the smartest member of this would-be Scooby Gang, played by Yellowjackets‘ Jasmin Savoy Brown, figures out that these aren’t just copycat killings. They’re all in the middle of a “requel.”
Yes, a requel — the distinctly 21st century Frankenstein’s monster of a franchise entry in which legacy characters from beloved series pair up with fresh blood in the name of breathing new life into an old but highly beloved intellectual property. It’s somehow both a reboot and a sequel, a “return to basics” and a reset after diminishing returns. If your film is part of a series [cough] but you ditch the numbers after the title [cough, cough] and simply name your new entry after the first movie [cough, COUGH, sputter, dead], then you may be a requel. God forbid you anger those who worship the brand like a religion, and feel that those who somehow mess with the integrity of such canon fodder be subject to a campaign of online harassment, name-calling and worse. You might get Mary Sue-d.
And while it may be spoilery to say much else, it’s safe to note that this type of toxic fandom is exactly what Scream ’22 is sharpening its knives for as it goes in for the meta-kill. It’s a smart way of tackling a topic that’s plagued both long-in-the-tooth franchises and relatively new cinematic universes — that some sort of purity of essence must be maintained, and that fans are entitled to protect their cherished memories because, say, tweaking a detail or letting a POC character enter their pop culture sandbox is a personal attack. And the concept of taking such folks to task acts as a through line to the countless in-house callbacks and references to other movies, even when this particular house of mirrors feels like it’s about to collapse in on itself. It’s hard to say what the directorial duo of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (the same guys who gave us the equally cheeky Ready or Not) and screenwriters James Vanderbilt (Zodiac) and Guy Busick (Castle Rock) might have at stake here. But they all definitely have an axe to grind, and are more than willing to take said axe to a slaughterfest set on sacred genre ground.
Do you like scary movies about scary movies that somehow laugh at yet pay reverence to other scary movies? Then you will love this new Scream. Do you prefer your horror to not be so back-pattingly clever about all of that, and to remove tongues from mouths rather than place them firmly in cheeks? Then you’re shit outta luck here, my friend, though that’s been some purists’ beef with the series since Drew Barrymore first put the Jiffy-Pop on the stove and picked up her phone. It also runs out of steam long before it runs out the clock, which has also been a staple of the series as well. Yet you have to applaud how boldly this fifth entry tries to flip the bird to the entire rinse-repeat-regurgitate idea of trapping film series in amber, while also delivering you the thrill of the familiar and those dopamine bumps that come with the pang of recognition. It wants to eat its cake and stab it repeatedly, too. And if you don’t like it, watch out. They might come after you in the next requel.
Fan-Favorite Scream 4 Character Confirmed Alive in New Movie
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It’s been ten years since audiences went back to Woodsboro and the financial failure of 2011’s Scream 4 almost made it seem like the meta-slasher franchise was finished forever. Just like the killer at the end of the movie though, they always come back, and this week saw the release of Scream, the fifth in the series. For the most part the new Scream movie makes references to the original trilogy in the series, and spends a lot of time setting up the new crop of characters, but a lingering plot thread from Scream 4 was officially confirmed in the movie in the most subtle way possible, specifically that one character actually survived. Potential spoilers follow!
Though the return of the legacy characters was a big part of Scream 4’s appeal top fans at the time, but just like the new movie some of the fresh faces that appeared ended up becoming franchise favorites. Among those in Scream 4 was Heroes star Hayden Panettiere as Kirby Reed, the best friend of Emma Roberts’ Jill and the new movie-obsessed expert for the 2011 sequel. During the events of Scream 4 it’s sort of implied that Kirby died, having been stabbed by Rory Culkin’s Charlie and left for dead, but 2022’s Scream confirms that Kirby is alive and well.
(Photo: Dimension)
In a moment that lampoons YouTube accounts dedicated to tearing down major movie franchises, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Easter egg on the side confirms Kirby’s fate. On the side of the main video being played is a recommended video titled “Interview with Woodsboro Survivor Kirby Reed” and featuring a photo of Panettiere as the thumbnail.
No further mention of Kirby is made in the movie and it’s possible that this Easter egg was just there to give fans of the series some closure for a character whose death was left incredibly ambiguous. To take it a step further though, perhaps it’s a seed being planted for a potential sixth Scream movie, one that brings Panettiere’s Kirby together with Jasmin Savoy Brown’s Mindy Meeks-Martin, the film-obsessed character in the 2022 movie.
“This new cast of characters is so wonderful. The legacy cast, they’re so wonderful,” co-director Tyler Gillett recalled to Total Film previously. “I think what we discovered, and what [screenwriters] Guy [Busick] and James [Vanderbilt] did, is they found a real reason for the next story to exist. We know that there is more gas in the tank. There are more stories to be told in Woodsboro, and about these characters, for sure.”
Scream is now playing in theaters.
Wilmington Star-News
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