Horror and humour dominate August box office as ‘Weapons’ and ‘Freakier Friday’ lead way

WEB DESK: Moviegoers have sent Hollywood a crystal-clear message: deliver quality, original horror and they will turn up in droves. This weekend, Zach Cregger’s Weapons sliced through the competition, topping the box office with USD42.5 million domestically from 3,202 theaters, and an impressive USD70 million globally. The highly anticipated horror release marks Warner Bros. Pictures’ seventh No. 1 opening this year and its sixth consecutive film to debut above USD40 million domestically.

It’s also the second original horror this year to claim the top spot, following Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, which opened in April to USD45.6 million. “Horror movies that get great reviews, that are super buzzy, like Weapons, can do extraordinarily well at the box office,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. The proof is in the praise, Weapons scored 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, while Sinners landed an even higher 97%. The new film has already outpaced Cregger’s 2022 hit Barbarian ($40.8 million domestically).

In second place, Disney’s Freakier Friday, a chaotic sequel to the 2003 Lindsay Lohan–Jamie Lee Curtis body-swap comedy, opened to USD29 million from 3,975 North American theaters. This time, the swapping chaos doubles, involving not only the original mother-daughter duo but also Lohan’s teen daughter and soon-to-be stepdaughter. The family-friendly comedy stood in sharp contrast to Weapons, creating what Dergarabedian called “something for everyone” at theaters.

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Both films benefitted from viral marketing and strong social media buzz, with audiences posting reactions in real time over opening weekend. “The top two films could not be more different, and that’s what makes this weekend so appealing for moviegoers,” Dergarabedian said.

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Rounding out the top five, Marvel’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps, in its third week, dropped 60 per cent to earn USD15.5 million, bringing its domestic total to USD230.4 million. Animated sequel Bad Guys 2 took fourth with USD10.4 million, while The Naked Gun franchise’s fourth installment landed fifth with $8.37 million.

The strong performances of Weapons and Freakier Friday helped push the overall box office up 7.6% from this time last year, totaling $5.6 billion so far in 2025. As summer winds down, analysts say Disney’s next heavy hitters — Zootopia 2 (Nov. 26) and Avatar: Fire and Ash (Dec. 19) — could cap the year with even bigger numbers.

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Web Desk