Horror at the Box Office: Ready or Not 2 Opens in Fourth
Ready or Not 2: Here I Come opened with a solid but unspectacular $9 million domestically, landing in fourth place at the weekend box office. It’s earned about $12 million worldwide. The $20 million budget sequel has received generally positive feedback, so it hopefully will show staying power in the weeks ahead.
Its gross is nearly identical to the $8 million that the original Ready or Not made in its opening weekend in 2019, although the first film would have outgrossed the second with today’s ticket prices. Ready or Not finished with about $57 million worldwide, so it will be interesting to see how the sequel compares by the end of its run.
Scream 7 finished in sixth place in its fourth weekend, adding an estimated $4.3 million for a domestic cume of about $115 million. After its giant drop in week 2, Scream 7 has shown decent staying power. It dropped about 50% from week 3, which is a decent holdover, especially with new competition. It’s closing in on $200 million worldwide. The lure of Ghostface remains strong despite negative reviews.
Undertone dropped 67% in its second weekend, finishing eighth and grossing approximately $3 million for a domestic total of about $15 million. That may not seem like much, but this movie is no flop. It cost only half a million to make (although A24 surely paid more than that for the distribution rights) and is running up a nice profit.
The Bride! continued to be a miserable disaster, grossing $275k for a total of about $12.5 million in North America and $23 million worldwide on a budget of (gulp) an estimated $80-90 million. That put it in 12th place for the weekend.
Up Next
There are no big name franchise horror films coming out this week, but there are two that may have sleeper hit potential. Forbidden Fruits, a horror comedy about a group of young women who work at a mall and are part of a witch cult, marks the horror debut of the lovely Lili Reinhart.
I’m not sure what took her so long to jump on the genre bandwagon, but this movie certainly looks entertaining. I may be biased, but I think she looks great with red hair!
Forbidden Fruits is a Shudder production. They have enough faith in this movie to give it an exclusive theatrical release before it will inevitably end up on their streaming platform.
The other horror flick coming this Friday is They Will Kill You, which is about a housekeeper who takes a job at a fancy New York City apartment with a history of mysterious disappearances related to (trailer spoilers ahead) a Satanic cult that commits human sacrifices.
Based on the trailer, this is a Ready or Not-style dark horror action comedy. It looks fun, but it’s a commercial risk releasing this movie right after Ready or Not 2 came out. We’ll see if it catches on with audiences.
Credit to Box Office Mojo for the figures cited.
