Scream is back and if the Thursday night preview numbers are any indication, it’s about to slice up the MLK weekend.
Scream grossed $3.5 million from Thursday night previews that began at 7:00 PM from roughly 3,000 theaters, per “Deadline.” This is a solid start for a horror film during the pandemic, especially as the Omicron variant continues to surge. It’s behind the Thursday night preview numbers of Halloween Kills and A Quiet Place Part II ($4.8 million) but it’s not too far behind the pre-pandemic MLK preview number for Glass ($3.7 million). That film went on to open to a 3-day gross of $40 million and that would keep Scream in line with tracking, which has it opening at $35-40 million this weekend.
Scream’s weekend fate is looking very promising. The Rotten Tomatoes score is 76% fresh as of this writing and the audience score is an even more impressive 90%. The social media chatter has also been VERY positive which indicates that good word of mouth is in its sights. Adding to its good fortune, Scream is really the only marquee title on the calendar until February 4, 2022, when Moonfall and Jackass Forever hit screens. They also kept this one cheap with a $24 million budget. Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media are about to have a hit and franchise reset on their hands.
Per the film’s official synopsis, “Twenty-five years after a streak of brutal murders shocked the quiet town of Woodsboro, a new killer has donned the Ghostface mask and begins targeting a group of teenagers to resurrect secrets from the town’s deadly past. Neve Campbell (“Sidney Prescott”), Courteney Cox (“Gale Weathers”) and David Arquette (“Dewey Riley”) return to their iconic roles in Scream alongside Melissa Barrera, Kyle Gallner, Mason Gooding, Mikey Madison, Dylan Minnette, Jenna Ortega, Jack Quaid, Marley Shelton, Jasmin Savoy Brown, and Sonia Ammar.”
Did YOU catch Scream last night? Will YOU be watching it this weekend?