We hope there’s not the identical stage of hand-wringing and asterisks thrown round about Zach Cregger‘s “Weapons” as there was for Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners,” as a result of a stellar No. 1 opening for “Weapons” now offers Warner Bros. two authentic horror films that every opened No. 1 on the field workplace in 2025.
“Weapons” introduced in $71.8 million globally, together with $43.5 million home, in accordance with Monday’s remaining totals, simply touchdown it the highest spot forward of “Freakier Friday” and holdovers like “The Improbable 4: First Steps.” Warner Bros. (“Weapons” is a New Line Cinema title) now has had seven movies this yr which have opened No. 1, together with “Mickey 17,” “A Minecraft Film,” “Ultimate Locations: Bloodlines,” “Superman,” and “F1: The Film” (which WB launched with Apple). New Line additionally launched January’s “Companion,” one other authentic horror movie additionally produced by Cregger, and that movie made $36.7 million worldwide.
Whereas franchise horror movies have had their second this yr too, together with “28 Years Later,” “Ultimate Vacation spot,” and “I Know What You Did Final Summer time,” different dips again into the IP properly have struggled, together with “M3GAN 2.0,” “Till Daybreak,” and “Wolf Man.” Blumhouse’s slate for the rest of 2025 additionally contains a number of sequels to previous hits.
The success of “Weapons” is extra ammunition for anybody beating the drum that Hollywood must take extra dangers. And “Weapons,” although not on the price range stage of “Sinners,” had its personal dangers. Not solely is it a cryptic, genre-bending authentic with a not-so-veiled message about grief and trauma within the aftermath of faculty shootings, Cregger’s movie carries a $38 million manufacturing price range, a quantity at which New Line reportedly received a bidding conflict over Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw banner.
That’s an aggressive quantity for an rising filmmaker. His prior movie was the sleeper hit “Barbarian,” which wound up grossing $40.8 million home and $45.3 million complete. “Weapons” has already trounced that, and the higher comp could possibly be “Sinners,” which made the same $48 million in its opening weekend.
“Sinners” had a formidable, hard-to-top maintain throughout weekends, and it’s potential “Weapons” has the hallmarks to doubtlessly do the identical. Critiques are equally robust, “Weapons” received an A- CinemaScore to an A for “Sinners,” and “Weapons” (like “Sinners”) additionally did particularly properly in IMAX, bringing in $8.1 million globally from IMAX screens in comparison with $11.1 million international for “Sinners.” IMAX is already planning on holding over “Weapons” on nearly all its home screens for one more weekend.
For his subsequent movie, Cregger will probably be dabbling with IP in his tackle the online game franchise “Resident Evil,” one other property that demanded an aggressive bidding conflict to win Cregger’s companies. However the success of “Weapons” means that studios will probably be lining as much as give him a clean examine for no matter authentic thought he hatches subsequent.
