‘Black Phone 2’ Opening to $24 Million, Blumhouse Is Back

SUNDAY AM: Refresh for chart and more analysis Blumhouse and Universal’s Black Phone 2 was slightly bigger at $26.5M after a Saturday ease of -13% with $9.6M off Friday/previews $11M. Blumhouse bounces back with a solid sequel to a beloved fan original with no overpriced gimmicks ala M3GAN 2.0. Finally, a year where every other studio has rallied in some form or shape with horror, Blumhouse rightly gets its due. Comscore reports that YTD horror movies have scared up $1.2 billion at the domestic B.O., besting 2017’s record $1.16 billion. Now, onward to Five Nights at Freddy’s 2.

Said Universal Domestic Distribution Chief Jim Orr this AM, “Visionary filmmaker Scott Derrickson and our partners, the masters of horror at Blumhouse, have once again crafted a haunting triumph that captivated audiences this weekend.  This chilling sequel starring Ethan Hawke and Mason Thames is leaving moviegoers everywhere thrilled and terrified in the best possible way.”

Lionsgate’s Good Fortune with $6.25M is in the range we were seeing, but still low for the Aziz Ansari directed and starring body swap/angels comedy.

Disney’s Tron: Ares is at $103M global for ten-days — which is not a great two-weekend running cume for this attempted to rebooted franchise. Domestic took a big fall at -67% or $11.1M which is a cliff next to Blade Runner 2049‘s second weekend decline of -53% or $15.4M. Running U.S/Canada total is $54.5M. Imax delivered $4.5M global to Tron: Ares ($2.2M of that from 409 domestic auditoriums) The running worldwide Imax cume for the Joachim Rønning directed movie is $17.6M.

Warner Bros’ One Battle After Another has a global haul of $162.5M, after a fourth worldwide weekend of $15.8M. The movie’s continued running tally is ahead of the final global take of Leonardo DiCaprio’s last movie, Killers of the Flower Moon ($158.7M).

Comscore also says that while the 2025 box office hovers 2024 by some 4%, October is lagging with $288M, -11% versus the same comparable frame a year ago ($322M).

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SATURDAY AM w/chart: In what has been a heavy-loaded horror year, every other studio seemed to be winning with the genre except Blumhouse. Until now: the horror house of Purge & Five Nights at Freddy’s finally makes a comeback this weekend with Black Phone 2 which in its opening is ahead of its predecessor with a 3-day of $24.4M.

Important to note how profitable the sequel will be as the original Black Phone cleared $67M after all ancillaries, a $161M global gross, and an $18M production cost, and $72M global P&A. Scott Derrickson directed both pics.

The sequel throughout last night continued to trend up against comps, which is a great sign for a horror film. A -22% ease from Friday is expected today with $8.3M. That’s better than the first Saturday of 2021’s Black Phone which declined -26% from Friday with a $7.5M take. Overall CinemaScore is a B, which is very good for a horror film on that exit poll’s scale. In ComScore/Screen Engine’s PostTrak, women under 25 (who showed up at 22%) loved the R-rated movie the most at 85% positive score and 76% definite recommend along with 13-17 year olds (12%, more than Tron:Ares‘ 6% last weekend for the demo) who gave it an 88% positive score and massive 83% definite recommend. Overall definite recommend, the barometer for success on PostTrak, is a great 63%.

Audiences are picking up Black Phone 2 in the West, Midwest and South Central. Shared PLFs with Tron: Ares are driving close to a third of the gross with the AMC Burbank the nation’s highest grossing cinema with close to $31K so far.

Latino and Hispanic audiences are first in line for Black Phone 2 at 39%, followed by 35% Caucasian, 15% Black and 5% Asian American. Strong 18-34 turnout at 63% in addition to under 25 at 47%.

Universal communicated far and wide on social with Black Phone 2 counting a social media reach of 307M, 37% above horror franchise genre norms before opening. That’s almost as big as New Line’s Final Destination: Bloodlines (353M), bigger than last fall’s Smile 2 (160M), and the original Black Phone (141M). Social media stars are Mason Thames (2.3M fans), Ethan Hawke (1.5M) and Madeleine McGraw (900K). Notices RelishMix, “Convo runs positive for The Black Phone 2 as fans bless the sequel logic, saying the first already had ghosts, so a supernatural return makes sense. They rally behind Ethan Hawke and melt for the Alice in Chains needle drop, noting Layne’s voice gave them chills and the song goes hard. Trailer moments land well as the ice-skate glide looks genuinely scary, the ‘Vengeance is mine’ line hits, and Finny’s grown-up look fuels return-ticket energy. Feeds are full of, ‘I’m going, can’t wait, and sequel I never knew I needed.’”

The weekend’s other starry wide entry, Lionsgate’s Good Fortune, which at net $30M cost as much as Black Phone 2, ain’t faring well with $5.7M-$6.1M. B+ CinemaScore, and a pretty good 59% definite recommend, but nobody is going. At a time when we want comedies to truly make a return at the box office, this Keanu Reeves, Seth Rogen, Aziz Ansari feature isn’t calling the masses out despite good reviews at 78% certified fresh and a 77% audience score out of its TIFF world premiere. The film, an homage to movies like Warren Beatty’s Heaven Can Wait, is playing ala a specialty movie, on the coasts. Largely guys over 25 (42%) and women over 25 (39%) with hardly anyone under 25 at 19%. The movie was greenlit given its conceit: two historically strong box office genres –angels among us and body swap comedies– have traditionally fared well. While Reeves is known of late for his John Wick streak, returning him to his comedy chops, particularly as a gentle angel, was an m.o. that wasn’t out of the norm. That said, while conceived as a commercial play, audiences are perceiving this as an arthouse title. You can see that in the turnout.

Perhaps the word of mouth will get Good Fortune to a bigger multiple. Women (who showed up at 47%) and men (53%) respectively gave it sold definite recommends at 54% and 65%.

With a 166 million reach across TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and X, Good Fortune‘s social media universe is paced 13% behind other comedy norms, RelishMix comping the Ansari directed movie to Naked Gun, Caught Stealing, Joy Ride and Honey Don’t. Rogen counts 24.5M social media followers, Keke Palmer is 23.2M, with full force from Ansari at 11.9M. Reeves is still off the grid for his films. As far as the sniping online, RelishMix noticed “Mixed-negative leaning chatter for Good Fortune hits on recycled looks, AI vibes, and some misplaced casting. Keanu’s Wick-hair-and-beard fatigue is real with complaints like, ‘You’d think Keanu would change his look for this movie. Instead it’s John Wick with costume store wings. Looks lame to me.’”.

The freefall of auteur driven sophisticated cinema this fall at the box office in the wake of pics by Derek Cianfrance, Darren Aronofsky, Ronan Day-Lewis, Benny Safdie and Kogonada continues with Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt which in its weekend 2 expansion from six NYC to LA theaters to 1,238 theaters isn’t wowing with a $1,2K theater average and $1.6M second frame. The domestic box office gross endgame for this Amazon MGM Studios movie is $5M and God knows, it didn’t cost that much to produce with Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield starring. At 38% on Rotten Tomatoes with critics, and 35% with audiences, nobody is buying this psychological thriller about sexual politics at the university level. As always, Amazon can absorb the cost in a way that other motion pictures distributors cannot with a parachute for this film on Prime Video.

Angel Studios period WWII movie Truth & Treason walks away with the weekend’s only A CinemaScore thanks to its faith-based followers, but not much of a flock with a $2.5M opening. All the money is in the faith-based tracks of South, Mountain, and Midwest with the top grossing cinema being the Megaplex Theatres in Geneva, UT with just over $7K.

Total weekend is $67.6M for all movies as of this minute, just -2% off from mid-October a year ago. This is a big weekend for teeing up a horror tentpole in the pre-Halloween corridor and Black Phone 2 is it. You’ll remember, Blumhouse’s Halloween opened in this same exact frame back in 2018 charting the 6th best opening of October with $76.2M.

Saturday numbers:

2 Tron: Ares (Dis) 4000 theaters, Fri $3M (-79%), 3-day $11M (-65%), Total $54.4M/Wk 2

3. Good Fortune (LG) 2,990 theaters, Fri $2.4M, 3-day $5.7M-$6.1M/Wk 1

4. One Battle After Another (WB) 2,532 (-595) theaters, Fri $1.1M (-44%), 3-day $3.7M (-45%), Total $61.6M/Wk 4

5. Roofman (Par) 3,370 (+8) theaters, Fri $1.1M, 3-day $3.65M (-55%), Total $15.4M/Wk 2

6. Truth & Treason (Angel) 2,088 theaters, Fri $1.1M 3-day $2.5M/Wk 1

7. After the Hunt (AMZ) 1,238 (+1,232) theaters, Fri $680K (+661%), 3-day $1.6M (+906%), Total $1.8M/Wk 2

8. The Conjuring: Last Rites (NL) 1,981 (-353) theaters, Fri $425K (-51%) 3-day $1.5M (-52%),Total $175.3M/Wk 7

9. Gabby’s Dollhouse (Uni) 2,535 (-514) theaters, Fri $400K (-57%), 3-day $1.55M (-55%), Total $29.8M/Wk 4

10. Soul on Fire (Sony) 1,720 theaters, Fri $405K (-68%) 3-day $1.35M (-52%), Total $5.59M/Wk 2

FRIDAY MIDDAY UPDATE: Blumhouse is looking at its biggest opening year-to-date after four movies with Black Phone 2, which is shaping up for a $23 million start after a Friday and previews of $10.1M at 3,411 sites.

After an autumn of lost hopes, thank God. That’s $600,00 lighter than the 2021 first installment’s opening, and we’ll take it.

Giving the Universal release some extra power are 1,000 exhibitor PLF screens as well as 170 AMC-only Dolby Cinema screens.

Second place goes to Disney’s Tron: Ares at 4,000 sites with a 65% second-weekend decline, steeper than the movie’s pre-Covid comp Blade Runner 2049, which was down 53% in its weekend 2. The Jared Leto movie’s three-day is $11.5M, and its second Friday is $3.3M. The 10-day running total by Sunday will stand at $54.9M, 10% behind Blade Runner 2049 at the same point in time and -37% behind 2010’s Tron: Legacy (its 10-day was $87.3M) which had the beneficial bounce of Christmas.

Third belongs to Lionsgate’s Good Fortune at 2,990 theaters, with $2.5M today and bad fortune at $6M for the net $30M feature.

Warner Bros’ fourth weekend of One Battle After Another at 2,532 sites is seeing $3.8M over Friday-Sunday and $1M today, for a running cume by Sunday of $61.7M.

Fifth is Paramount/Miramax’s Roofman at 3,370 with a second Friday of $1.1M and a second weekend of $3.65M (-55%), for a 10-day total of $15.4M.

Angel Studios is opening the Matt Whitaker-directed WWII period movie Truth & Treason at 2,088 theaters to $2.2M for the weekend after $1M today. The plot: One teen risks everything to expose the truth as he questions his loyalty to his German homeland. With the Gestapo closing in, he must decide what it really means to be a good German.

PREVIOUSLY, Friday AM: Universal and Blumhouse’s Black Phone 2 dialed up $2.6 million in previews Thursday at 2,900 theaters from showtimes that began at 2 p.m. That’s just under the $3M the original 2021 movie pulled in before bowing to $23.6M.

Black Phone 2 previews are in line with that of Paramount’s Smile 2, which opened in the same weekend a year ago with $2.5M in previews and a three-day total of $23M.

The hope is that Blumhouse, after seeing a lackluster streak in a horror-laden box office year for the industry, can actually get a break and post an opening that’s robust. The Scott Derrickson-directed sequel is figured to land between $20M-$30M. Reviews are solid at 74% certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. The first Black Phone was 81% with RT critics and had a B+ CinemaScore.

The setup for Black Phone 2 is that Ethan Hawke’s The Grabber is out there in the real world, not holed up in some neighborhood house in 1970s suburbia. Watch out. Production cost for Black Phone 2 is net $30M.

After the less-than-par opening for Disney’s Tron: Ares, and sophisticated adult movies in free-fall (I’m sorry, One Battle After Another is the exception and faring better at a near $58M than everything in its wake, i.e., Roofman, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, Caught Stealing, etc.), it’s doldrums time at the autumn box office, though according to ComScore for, from Labor Day through last Sunday, the season is flat with a year ago at $770.7M. It would be nice to finally see a movie meet its tracking forecast.

Meanwhile, Lionsgate has the comedy Good Fortune, directed by and starring Aziz Ansari along with Keanu Reeves and Seth Rogen. It’s expected to ring up under $10M at 2,985 locations. The movie cost a net $30 million in line with other Lionsgate movies; the pic, you’ll remember, was impacted by a start-and-stop with the writers and actors strikes. Coming out of its TIFF world premiere, Good Fortune is 79% fresh. Previews last night were $725,000 at 2,500 sites. Note that Roofman, another adult-skewing (largely guys, ironically, for a Channing Tatum movie) title last week, did $1M in previews before posting an $8M start.

Check out our interview below with Ansari at our TIFF studio:

Disney’s Tron: Ares ends the week with $43.4M, a number many were hopeful the net $180M production would open at. This movie is pacing slightly behind another Jared Leto sci-fi property, also with a finite fan base, 2017’s Blade Runner 2049, which posted a first week of $45.4M. Blade Runner 2049 with an A- CinemaScore held at -53% in weekend 2 with $15.4M, and Tron: Ares is expected to be steeper with -60% off its B+ CinemaScore. Tron Ares will keep the Imax and majority of PLFs and their great showtimes this weekend.

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