TUESDAY UPDATE: Damien Leone‘s Terrifier 3 came in at $2.59 million on the Indigenous Peoples holiday, which means the four-day total is $21.5M at 2,514 theaters. Tuesday, we’re hearing from sources, is around $1.8M, which gets the running total for the Cineverse movie to $23.3M.
Overall, Monday was won by DreamWorks Animation/Universal’s The Wild Robot with $3.5M in its third week, good for a running total of $87.8M. Warner Bros’ Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was third with $1.265M at 3,408 sites for a running cume of $277.1M. The studio’s bomb Joker: A Folie à Deux was fourth with $930,000, and a running total of $52.4M.
MONDAY UPDATE: Laser-sharp demographic marketing and a theatrical release date over the Indigenous Peoples holiday is driving Cineverse’s unrated slasher porn Terrifier 3 to a $20M-$21M four-day take after overperforming in its opening weekend.
Today is shaping up to be between $2M-$2.5M per sources. Close to half of all K-12 schools are off today according to Comscore, in addition to 21% colleges on break for the holiday.
What was originally supposed to be an $11M opening for the movie written and directed by Damien Leone has morphed into a an $18.9M three-day haul after a solid hold, down 20% on Sunday, with $4.77M. Originally, it was figured that Terrifier 3 would be down 30% on Sunday. And again, all of this success is sans TV spot promotions, which makes sense per sources because this is an unrated movie. Cineverse strictly targeted its streaming subs across 30 services as well as its Bloody Disgusting fanbase; all in, it’s an 80 million reach.
What’s weekend 2 look like? The typical horror hold of -65%? Perhaps even better — and there’s more horror movies on the way this Friday in Paramount’s Parker Finn-directed and -written Smile 2, which looks to make between $23M-$29M per one tracking service. The original 2022 movie was set to go out on Paramount+ until the Brian Robbins administration at the Melrose lot pivoted the Temple Hill feature for a theatrical release; the result was a huge $22.6M box office opening stateside, totaling out to $105.9M domestic and $217.4M global.
Rival studio executives are happy for Cineverse’s success here as it breaks through with what’s been a fickle moviegoing audience post-Covid and post-strikes.
Exclaims one major studio head, “This picture continues to confound.”