Despite a massive 76% decline from its debut, “Five Nights at Freddy’s” still emerged as the top film at the box office. The fall sleeper hit from Universal and Blumhouse collected $19.4 million in its second weekend, bringing its total earnings to a towering $113 million to date.
This spooky video game adaptation, set in a haunted Chuck E. Cheese-esque establishment, surpassed all expectations with its $80 million opening weekend. While ticket sales dropped significantly in its second weekend, the film, with a budget of $20 million, still performed decently, especially considering its simultaneous release on the streaming service Peacock.
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Box office analysts attribute the dramatic decline in ticket sales to the day-and-date digital release on Peacock, despite the streaming service having fewer subscribers compared to rivals like Disney and Netflix. Nevertheless, “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is a commercial triumph, already becoming the highest-grossing horror film of the year after just 10 days, surpassing “The Nun II” ($85 million), “M3GAN” ($95 million), and “Scream VI” ($108 million).
“‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ is crashing in its second weekend of simultaneous streaming,” says David A. Gross, the head of movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. “The two viewing options compete with each other. An exclusive theatrical run generates the greatest total box office and then elevates the film and builds anticipation for the streaming premiere that follows.”
While two new releases, “What Happens Later” and “The Marsh King’s Daughter,” failed to make it to the top five, contributing to one of the year’s lowest-grossing weekends at the domestic box office, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” held its position in second place, collecting $13.5 million in its fourth weekend and solidifying its status as the highest-grossing concert film in domestic box office history, with a total of $166 million in North America. Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” earned $7 million, bringing its domestic total to $52 million after three weeks of release. Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla Presley biopic “Priscilla” earned $5 million, exceeding expectations as it expanded to 1,259 theaters. Rounding out the top five is Pantelion’s “Radical,” which earned $2.7 million in its debut weekend.
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