Universal and Blumhouse are on their way to another micro-budget victory at the box office, as “Happy Death Day” is estimated to take the top spot at the box office this weekend with an estimated $26 million from 3,149 screens.
Though that total is below the $33 million made by “Get Out” and $40 million made by “Split” earlier this year, it’s well above the $18-20 million range set by trackers. Like those two films, “Happy Death Day” is a horror film tailored to younger audiences that is neither a sequel nor a remake, and made on the cheap with a production budget of $5 million.
And once again, Jason Blum’s formula has proven to be a winning one, as the film has received a B on CinemaScore and scored an opening night total of $11.6 million, including $1 million from previews. As with past Blumhouse titles, younger millennials are the driving force behind the success of “Happy Death Day,” with comScore reporting 60 percent of audiences coming from the under-25 crowd.
In second place is “Blade Runner 2049,” which looks like it will fall 56 percent from its disappointing $32.7 million opening for a second weekend total of $14.3 million. That would give the ambitious sci-fi film a ten-day domestic total of around $60 million. In third is STX’s “The Foreigner,” which is estimated to hit the upper end of tracker projections with a $13 million opening from 2,515 screens. The Jackie Chan/Pierce Brosnan revenge thriller has a 56 percent RT score and an A- on CinemaScore.
“It” remains in the top 5 in its sixth weekend with an estimated $6.66 million (how fitting), pushing its genre-record domestic total to $315.5 million. That puts the Stephen King film $18 million away from passing “Spider-Man: Homecoming” for the No. 4 spot on this year’s domestic charts, with a late box office surge expected as Halloween approaches.
Completing the top five is “The Mountain Between Us,” which is estimated to make $5.4 million in its second weekend. Outside the top 5, Open Road’s “Marshall” is expected to finish tenth this weekend with $3 million from 821 screens. Meanwhile, Annapurna’s “Professor Marston and the Wonder Women” is falling hard with just $800,000 from 1,229 screens.