Last summer, after a lengthy, pandemic-induced hiatus, movie theaters sprung back to life. But it wasn’t like flipping a switch. One blockbuster after another — even hotly anticipated Marvel movies about popular characters — underperformed. Then, just in time for the even more transmissible Omicron variant, one movie finally broke through: Spider-Man: No Way Home. Since bowing in mid-December, the threequel has shattered box office records. But now its reign at the top of the box office is over.
As per Box Office Mojo, Scream — which is not to be confused with the 1996 horror hit Scream, but which is nonetheless the fifth film in the series — kicked Peter Parker off the top of the charts with a $30.6 million debut. No Way Home, meanwhile, “only” amassed $20.8 million in its fifth weekend.
Of course, Scream’s haul was nowhere in the galaxy of the new Spider-Man’s opening weekend. Indeed, the revival was over $200 million shy of that film’s $253 domestic take, not to mention the $334.2 million it made overseas in its first weekend alone. (Scream’s overseas take, from 50 global markets, was $18 million.)
But $30.6 million — with more to come during Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a day-off for some — is nothing to sneeze at, and it suggests movie theaters may be okay in the long run.
The new Scream brings back some of the surviving stars from the long-running series, which bowed over a quarter century ago, producing two sequels released in the immediate wake, then a fourquel in 2011, as well as a TV series. Director Wes Craven, who helmed the first four, died in 2015.
(Via Box Office Mojo)