Paramount/Miramax’s “Scary Movie” is cruising to the top spot at the box office over Amazon MGM’s “Masters of the Universe,” earning a $55 million from 3,490 locations that is the highest for the horror movie parody series before inflation adjustment. Globally, the film has made $105 million for the weekend.
Holding a reported production budget of just $30 million before marketing costs — all financed by Miramax — “Scary Movie” is an instant mid-budget theatrical success regardless of whether its full theatrical run is frontloaded or not. Audience reception metrics have been mixed-to-positive, earning a C+ from opening night crowds and a 71% Rotten Tomatoes audience score.
72% of the opening weekend audience was from the 18-34 demographic, with 62% under the age of 30, showing that while millennial nostalgia was a major contributor, Gen Z also showed up looking for a good laugh after driving A24/Chernin’s “Backrooms” and Focus’ “Obsession” to box office success. According to Paramount, 90% of opening weekend moviegoers polled say that had seen a previous “Scary Movie” installment.
While “Scary Movie” was younger-skewing, Amazon MGM’s “Masters of the Universe” was, as one might expect for a film based on an 80s franchise, driven by Gen X with 59% of its opening weekend audience over the age of 35 and 37% over the age of 45 as the film earned a domestic opening of just $29.3 million.
Though this opening result is dwarfed immensely by the film’s $170 million budget before marketing, Amazon MGM domestic distribution head Kevin Wilson stayed positive in a statement released Saturday.
“This weekend represents a very solid start for Masters of the Universe and the passionate, multigenerational audience response we’re seeing around the world has been fantastic,” he said. “Travis Knight and the entire cast and filmmaking team have delivered something truly special, and this opening is exactly the kind of critical first moment that validates our holistic distribution strategy—building awareness and engagement that will carry well beyond the theatrical window.”
Reception for the film has been generally positive with a B on CinemaScore, Rotten Tomatoes scores of 66% critics and 88% audience, and PostTrak approval ratings of 81% among general audiences and 89% among kids.
But with an under-18 audience turnout of just 6%, “Masters of the Universe” doesn’t have much time to grow its family audience and achieve its goal of introducing He-Man to a new generation before Pixar’s “Toy Story 5,” which is projected for one of the best animated openings ever at well over $150 million, comes in as major competition.
“Masters” may even see its core audience of over-45 genre-loving moviegoers get peeled away by Steven Spielberg next weekend with the arrival of his alien thriller “Disclosure Day,” resulting in a very curtailed run for a film that carries a price tag as large as Amazon MGM’s spring tentpole hit, “Project Hail Mary” with a final box office total that might not even be a third of the Ryan Gosling sci-fi epic’s $679 million global total.
After its studio record-obliterating $81 million opening, A24’s “Backrooms” was bound to have a sharp drop, and that was indeed the case as the film earned just under $26 million in its second weekend, marking a 68% drop. That’s nearly the same second weekend drop of Disney/Lucasfilm’s “The Mandalorian and Grogu,” which has already fallen out of the top 5 with $10 million in its third weekend.
Unlike “Mandalorian and Grogu,” “Backrooms” will be very theatrically profitable, holding a fraction of the “Star Wars ” film’s P&A with a production spend of just $10 million. With $135 million domestic and $212 million worldwide, it now stands as A24’s highest grossing film of all time, passing the $197 million total of “Marty Supreme” this past winter.
In its fourth weekend, Focus’ “Obsession” finally took a weekend drop after seeing weekend-to-weekend increases over the past two weeks, a trend unheard of in today’s box office. But that fourth weekend drop was just 7%, as Curry Barker’s horror film blasts past $150 million domestic and $200 million worldwide with a $25.6 million total for the weekend, becoming Focus’ highest grossing film of all time.
Completing the top 5 is Fathom/Glitch’s “The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act,” which opened on Thursday to $7.8 million and is now estimated to make $19.5 million over four days from 2,221 locations.
Fathom Entertainment has grown from an event release company to a key specialty distributor by finding offerings off the beaten path like “The Chosen” that may not have an audience for a full theatrical run but can provide a surge of turnout to theaters for a weekend or two. “The Amazing Digital Circus,” which has built a devoted cult following since it debuted on Glitch’s YouTube channel in 2023, has fit that bill perfectly, having been added to the summer slate just two months ago.
In sixth is “The Mandalorian and Grogu” with just $10 million in its third weekend, falling below the $15.7 million third weekend of “Solo: A Star Wars Story” in 2018. The Disney+ spinoff film, which carries a reported $165 million budget, will limp past $300 million worldwide in the coming days as its $155.8 million domestic total will be overtaken by “Obsession” by Wednesday at the latest.
In deep holdovers, Lionsgate/Universal’s “Michael” is on the verge of passing $900 million worldwide as its release next weekend in Japan courtesy of Kino Films should give it the final push needed to pass “Oppenheimer” as the highest grossing biopic of all time. Finally, Universal/Illumination’s “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” will become the first $1 billion hit of 2026, having added $600,000 domestically in its ninth weekend.
More to come…