SATURDAY AM UPDATE: Universal/Blumhouse’s genre body swap comedy Freaky, starring Vince Vaughn, took in $1.45M yesterday, including Thursday night previews ~$200K, on what looks to be a $4M opening at 2,472 theaters.
Universal, the only major Hollywood studio putting out consistent fresh wide product during the pandemic, can claim a three-week streak at No. 1 between Focus’ Come Play over Halloween weekend, that label’s Let Him Go last weekend, and the parent studio’s Freaky this weekend.
Other benchmarks: Freaky reps the second No. 1 opening for Blumhouse this year after The Invisible Man, which debuted to $28.2M (Wow, that box office level feels like a 100 years ago). With Freaky, the last time star Vince Vaughn notched a No. 1 opening was with 2009’s Couples Retreat, also a Universal picture.
Freaky, like all of Uni and Focus’ recent releases, is part of the shortened theatrical window, PVOD share deal with AMC theaters.
The film, which is unusual for a comedy, notched an 84% certified fresh from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, which would be golden during a normal marketplace. However, there’s a lot of distractions out there, with gloom and doom on the news as COVID-19 cases spike. Heading to the movie theater is just not a priority for a majority of people right now.
In addition, those who saw Freaky only gave it a B- on CinemaScore. Also impacting box office are certain exhibition markets being offline due to recent county government restrictions, i.e. San Diego and Sacramento, and Chicago is 40% open. While there was north of 3,500 theaters operating last weekend, we’re now under that mark coast-to-coast. There is concern that it’s just going to get worse in the next two weeks, with local governments rolling back cinemas into lower safety tiers (i.e. California). We’ll see.
In terms of the digital push for this $6M production, RelishMix says “Social reach for Freaky, playing Friday the 13th, has made its way up into normal pre COVID-19 ranges, with a 99.2M social media universe. This is boosted by Universal’s social channels totaling 41.4M, including Facebook (30M fans), Twitter (4.3M followers), YouTube main channel for Universal Pictures (3.9M subscribers), Instagram (3.2M followers) and Blumhouse’s social media channels (1.2M — which is very good for a production company).”
Video view activity on YouTube has clocked 47.5M for two owned trailers, plus 11 additional TV spots — and 10.8M views on Facebook for 20 videos, although the viral video reposting rate of 16:1 falls short of normal horror metrics of 27:1.
Heading into the weekend, buzz on social for Freaky was upbeat, per RelishMix, which reports there being “comparisons to body swapping comedy The Hot Chick starring Rob Schneider and Rachel McAdams and many horror references to Happy Death Day, which was also directed by Freaky‘s Christopher Landon. Snarky yet positive, one person on social media says, ‘I was prepared to hate this trailer…now I definitely want to see this.’”
Freaky star Kathryn Newton is leading the charge on social media in pushing the pic to her 1.4M Instagram followers; Vaughn reportedly doesn’t have any public social media channels:
Let Him Go at 2,458 (+4) locations drew $560K yesterday, -62%, for what is looking like a weekend 2 of $1.8M, -55%, for a 10-day of $6.9M.
101 Studios’ The War With Grandpa in weekend 6 is in play at 2,145 sites (-203) with a Friday of $336K, -16%, on its way to a 3-day of $1.2M, repping a 19% dip and a running total of $15.1M. I hear the movie is being primed further to play through Thanksgiving in an effort to capitalize on family crowds.
Come Play is in 4th place in weekend 3 at 1,966 (-247) with $330K yesterday, -39%, and a 3-day of $1.08M, -40%, and running total of $7.3M.
Open Road’s Honest Thief in weekend 6 saw a Friday of $240K, -32%, in what looks like a 3-day of $775K, -32% for a running tally stateside of $12.3M.
Warner Bros.’ Tenet may upset the current top 5 here once the studio reports tomorrow. Last weekend, Tenet ranked 5th, earning $905K, +2%, for a running total of $55.1M. Box office analysts believe the Christopher Nolan movie has a shot at $60M domestic, which, based off its 11-day opening of $20.2M, is a near 3x multiple at the domestic B.O. (6x if you figure the movie earned $9.7M over its first 3-days; we don’t know, as Warners still isn’t sharing the box office figures in Comscore with other distributors).