– This opening is good-not-great. The weekend figure is a bit above average for an original horror comedy, with lukewarm critics’ reviews and a fair audience rating (a B- CinemaScore).
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Horror comedies are small movies. A handful were built to be series, like Scary Movie (#6 is coming Jun 12), Dark Shadows (Tim Burton directing Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Helena Bonham Carter), and Haunted House, but this is not in that league.
– This is a soft opening for a horror comedy. Indie distributors do not have the leverage and resources that the majors have when it comes to booking theaters and driving a marketing campaign. This movie is from IFC (They Will Kill You, above, is from Warner Bros.).
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The opening weekend is below par for the genre. Critics’ reviews are very good. There is no CinemaScore, but the audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes is tepid (a 69%), which means soft word-of-mouth:
– Starting with Anaconda on Christmas Day last year, we’ve had a new horror film on every weekend, or on 14 weekends in a row. That’s a record.
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There were two new horror films on Jan 30 (Send Help and Iron Lung), on Feb 6 (Dracula and The Strangers 3), and on the current weekend. That’s a triple-double during the 14 consecutive weekends, and another record.
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The streak will end next weekend, unless something unforeseen happens, and with this genre, it could. A complete list of the consecutive titles is here. This deserves a chart:
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– During the last two years, the number of horror titles that opened to less than $3 million has jumped. Below, their numbers are marked in yellow, which is cautionary, but perhaps they should be in green. These are remarkably resourceful and creative movies, and they regularly connect.
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For instance, two weekends ago, Undertone cost $500,000 to make and opened to $9.3 million, and on Jan 30, Iron Lung cost an est. $3 million, and it opened to $18.2m:
– As you can see, we do not expect horror films in 2026 to match 2025 at the BO. Last year, two unique and outstanding originals pushed the year over the top: Sinners ($370m worldwide) and Weapons ($270m) — $640m between them. We don’t see that on this year’s schedule.
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Among the sequels, the 2026 lineup also looks smaller than last year, which had Conjuring 4 ($499 million worldwide), Final Destination 6 ($318m), and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 ($239m).
– Project Hail Mary is having a sensation second weekend, down around -34% with over $52 million domestic. Overseas business is also excellent.
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This weekend’s two new openers are modest genre pics, but with strong holdover business, including from Hoppers, the weekend is still comfortably ahead of last year (around +33%).
– March has been a good month at the box office, up over +75% compared with last year. Last year was a disaster, so +75% doesn’t get business back to even. Still, it’s a good step, and it’s been driven primarily by original storytelling.
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April looks very good on paper, with Super Mario Bros. 2 opening next week on Wednesday April 1, and then the Michael Jackson biography on April 24 — both are tracking huge.
PROJECT HAIL MARY | READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME | DHURANDHAR 2: THE REVENGE openings | Amazon MGM’s release strategies | Where we are now | March 20 to 22, 2026 weekend here
REMINDERS OF HIM | UNDERTONE openings | Hollywood movies at the international box office | News regarding studio theatrical windows | Where we are now | March 13 to 15, 2026 weekend here
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