The summer box office will get one final shot this weekend from Disney’s “Freakier Friday,” a legacy sequel to the 2003 comedy starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, and “Weapons,” the New Line horror film that marks Zach Cregger’s return after his breakout 2022 hit film “Barbarian.”
While more films will come after this, including Universal’s “Nobody 2,” Sony/Columbia’s “Caught Stealing” and Cineverse’s “The Toxic Avenger,” these two movies have been identified as having the best chance to become an August sleeper hit.
With both films enjoying pre-release support and great reviews, it’s not clear who is going to take No. 1. Last week, theatrical sources gave “Freakier Friday” the edge as a film tailored specifically for women in a summer loaded with the usual big blockbusters and one which appeals to the same millennial nostalgia as the “Lilo & Stitch” remake, albeit with for a smaller audience pool.
But “Weapons” is coming in hot, with Fandango reporting that it has the second-highest presales of the year for a horror film thanks to a captivating marketing campaign and near-unanimously positive early reviews, as the film sports a 98% Rotten Tomatoes score with 64 reviews logged.
For now, both films are projected to open to at least $30 million, with significant upside. “Freakier Friday” has a reported $42 million budget, while “Weapons” is a tad lower at $38 million.
Back in 2003, “Freaky Friday” was a box office success for Disney, grossing $160 million worldwide against a $26 million budget and earning Curtis a Golden Globe nomination.
The teens and tweens who saw that film in theaters are grown up, and many of them have kids of their own. While that nostalgia is largely consolidated among millennial women, the PG rating for “Freakier Friday” could make it a popular mother-daughter outing and attract Gen Z moviegoers who haven’t seen the first film. Disney insiders tell TheWrap that presales for the film have reached $3.5 million so far, and there’s hope that strong walkup for matinee screenings can be sustained over several weeks.
“Weapons,” meanwhile, will have a better chance at drawing a broader adult audience and will have the advantage of premium format support, including Imax. It has also captivated the attention of horror fans with marketing that not only explains the premise in a nutshell, but presents it like a chilling urban legend.
If you’ve seen a trailer, TV ad, or even the poster for “Weapons,” you know it by now: At 2:17 AM, every child from the same elementary school class got out of bed, ran into the forest and never came back. It immediately presents a mystery and touches on so many fears that it can capture the attention of a wide range of moviegoers, all while striking a balance between showing hints of the horrors hiding in “Weapons” while not giving everything away, something that another acclaimed New Line horror film, “Companion,” struggled to do with its marketing earlier this year.
But all signs point to “Weapons” extending Warner Bros’ box office winning streak to six films. After “Companion” and “Mickey 17” disappointed in the first quarter of 2025, Warner has enjoyed wild success with “A Minecraft Movie,” “Sinners,” “Final Destination: Bloodlines,” “Superman,” and as a distributor, Apple’s “F1.” Combined, those five films have grossed more than $1.3 billion at the domestic box office and $2.7 billion worldwide.