Box Office Predictions: Five Nights at Freddy’s to open strong

The final weekend before Halloween is upon us and the masters of horror, Blumhouse, are releasing the highly anticipated video game adaptation of Five Night’s at Freddy’s. The PG13 rated film is seeing a wide release on around 3500 screens with tracking currently having the film hit around $50 million while some see the film hitting as high as $85 million.

The biggest obstacle the film has to overcome is that for some reason, some studio executive at Universal thought it’d be a good idea to give this one a simultaneous release with their Peacock streaming service. So the big question is: will people pay the $10-$20 to see this in theaters or will paying just $5.99 for a month of Peacock be the route a lot of people take? I am not a big supporter of streamers, there are too many and most of them put out maybe one decent movie every three months. So count me in as one who will be enjoying this one on the big screen. 

The biggest comp for this release comes from 2021’s Halloween Kills which also saw a day and date release in theaters and on Peacock. That one opened with $49.4 million, which was a drop off from earlier films in the franchise and saw a second week decline of over 70%. Of course you could argue that the decline was based on the reaction to the film itself and not the availability on Peacock.

I think this one has the potential to hit a solid number in its opening, probably around $65 million. Which, if you’re keeping track would put it above such openings as Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny ($60.3 million) and Mission: Impossible- Dead Reckoning Part One ($54.6 million) and Five Night’s at Freddy’s has a budget that is roughly 6.5% of what those films cost to make ($20 million vs $300 million)! However you decide to enjoy this latest Blumhouse offering, may I suggest a “Murderous Animatronic” movie marathon. Start by seeing Five Night’s at Freddy’s on the big screen and then head home to have a delightful double feature with The Banana Splits Movie and the under-appreciated Nicolas Cage film Willy’s Wonderland.

Moving down a spot will be Taylor Swift: the Eras Tour as it eyes a third weekend in the $14 million range as most of the “swifties” have seen the movie by now and may not want to keep shelling out $20-$30 to see it again, especially when what you are paying for is not to see the movie, but to see a bunch of annoying people stand up, block your view, sing the songs loudly and take video of it for their social media pages. Regardless of all that, the film is the highest grossing concert film ever at the domestic box office (still has about $80 million to go before it claims the worldwide title from Michael Jackson’s This is It and at this pace, I’m not entirely sure it will get there). If AMC wants to open the film to their AMC Stubs A-List members, I’m sure the box office numbers could go higher as I know a few people who have said they’d see the film if they could use their A-list but refuse to shell out an additional $25 for the concert film. 

Third place will go to Martin Scorsese’s divisive Killers of the Flower Moon which saw an impressive $23.2 million debut last week (with another $20 million internationally) and has been seeing some solid day to day numbers during the week. I’d expect a second weekend drop in the 40-45% range putting it around $13 million for the weekend. The film has seen some great reviews (including a rare 10/10 from our own Chris Bumbray) while I have seen some internet chatter saying they felt every second of the films 206 minute runtime. Regardless of how you feel about the film (I fall right in the middle, I enjoyed the movie very much but did not find it perfect), it is a very important story about a piece of American history that seemed to have been glossed over.

Faith based studio Angel studios had a massive hit this summer with Sound Of Freedom (I think, I still don’t fully understand how that whole “pay it forward” system worked) and they are back this weekend with the wide release of the documentary After Death which chronicles people who have had near-death experiences. This one is hard to predict, documentaries don’t generally make an impression on the box office but faith based films have been massively over-performing for the past few years, so the question is: does this one crack the top five? With holdover titles such as Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie, The Exorcist: Believer and the 30th anniversary re-release of The Nightmare Before Christmas dropping off a bit, I think After Death has a chance to hit around $4 million which is about where I think Paw Patrol will hit as well. Perhaps kids will want to wear their Halloween costumes to the theaters before Tuesday and that will help Paw Patrol edge out After Death, a sentence I never thought I’d type! 

Do you think our predictions are right on the money or did we miss the mark? Let us know in the comments and don’t forget to check back on Saturday when we have a brief update on where the box office numbers are heading.

TOP FIVE PREDICTIONS

1. Five Nights At Freddy’s– $65 Million
2. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour– $14 Million
3. Killers of the Flower Moon– $13 Million
4. Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie– $4.5 Million
5. After Death– $4 Million