Scream Keeps the Box Office Alive with $20+ Million Opening

The omicron variant may be presenting a new wave of challenges as we enter the third year of the coronavirus pandemic, but Scream is keeping things alive at the box office. The fifth film in the Scream franchise has had a robust opening weekend, bringing in $23.4 million in its first two days and is well on its way to a $31.5 million 3-day and $36 million 4-day weekend opening box office. Those numbers have Paramount Pictures thrilled at how the film has "reinvigorated the franchise".

"This opening has reinvigorated the franchise for fans while simultaneously introducing it to a whole new generation of new Scream fans, Chris Aronson, Paramount's domestic theatrical distribution boss said (via Deadline).

Scream's 3-day numbers put it in line with previous installments of the franchise with Scream 2 having done $32.9 million in 1997 and Scream 3 having done $34.7 million in 2022. The new movie's 4-day numbers also beats out Andy Muschietti's 2013 film Mama in terms of best opening for a horror movie over the MLK holiday weekend. That film's 4-day was $32.1 million. Scream is also set to dethrone Spider-Man: No Way Home at the box office, a position it has held for four weeks.

The new Scream is the first film in the overall franchise to not be directed by the legendary Wes Craven, who passed away in 2015. Instead, Matt Betinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett helm this new film and star Neve Campbell recently told ComicBook.com that the directors and the new film both deeply honor Craven's legacy.

"We'd been apprehensive about doing it without Wes just because he was the master and the reason these movies are as fantastic as they are, but Matt and Tyler wrote us a letter expressing that they became directors because of Wes Craven and that they made Ready or Not because of the Scream movies and that they could not believe they were having the opportunity to even write us the letters and make these movies," Campbell told ComicBook.com. "So, that really set the tone for their enthusiasm and their love and their real wish to honor his legacy. So, I felt confident in them and Ready or Not is an amazing movie, so they definitely seem like the right people."

Campbell went on to say that she also had a good experience with the filmmakers, and that they kept Craven with them, in spirit, on set in how they approached each scene.

"And we had a great experience with them," she continued. "We certainly have felt Wes, his absence, but we certainly felt his presence as well. We talked about him every day, all day. Every time we shot a scene, either Matt or Tyler would want to know what Wes might have thought, what his opinion would be. And I think that process and that conversation really kept him with us."

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.  

Scream is in theaters now.