Chuck E. Cheese restaurants may be a relic of the past, but Five Nights At Freddy’s might turn out to be show business’ future. Five Nights At Freddy’s 2, the sequel to Freddy Fazbear’s first adventure in child endangerment, scored a $63 million opening weekend. That might buy a lot of rounds of skeeball, but it is $20 million less than the original’s $83 million opening. Nevertheless, sandwiched between two massive offers to buy Warner Bros. and further consolidate the entertainment industry, the efforts of Freddy, Bonnie, and, yes, even Chica, will not go unnoticed. Gen Z loves their Chuck E. Cheese-set Easter egg hunt, and as long as they’re willing to pay to see it in theaters, we’re not going to complain—at least, not outside of our review we’re not.
Still, while Five Nights might be suffering from diminishing returns, it’s worth noting that competition was more cutthroat this year. In 2023, Fazbear only had Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour concert film to contend with. Why Five Nights 2 didn’t open in October is beyond us. Without another horror film in the mix, the underwhelming Black Phone 2 ran the table and made Mason Thames a box office juggernaut. Instead of being counterprogramming for Regretting You and Tron: Ares over Halloween weekend, Freddy competed with the second week of Zootopia 2, which eeked out $43 million, and the third weekend of Wicked: For Good, grossing $17 million.
There were other new releases in the mix, too. GKIDS released Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution, a recap of the anime Jujutsu Kaisen‘s second season, to $10 million from 1,800 screens. (We look forward to seeing a recap of The Bear season four on the big screen someday.) And even with the bad press generated by his Paul Dano opinions, Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair earned $3.42 million. That’s not bad for a four-and-a-half-hour version of a 20-year-old movie re-released on fewer than 2,000 screens. It was only slightly below the fourth week of Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, which added $3.48 million to its $55 million take. There’s also the slowly expanding Hamnet, earning another $2.3 million this weekend. Variety is the spice of life, though, and those without the stomach for Shakespearean grief porn had Broadway on their side. Near the bottom of the top 10 was another new release, the filmed version of Broadway’s Merrily We Roll Along, grossing $1.3 million.
Here’s the full top 10:
- 1) Five Nights At Freddy’s 2 ($64 million)
- 2) Zootopia 2 ($43 million)
- 3) Wicked: For Good($17 million)
- 4) Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution ($10 million)
- 5) Now You See Me: Now You Don’t ($3.48 million)
- 6) Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Afair ($3.42 million)
- 7) Eternity ($2.7 million) Hamnet ($2.3 million)
- 8) Predator Badlands ($1.8 million)
- 9) Merrily We Roll Along ($1.3 million)
- 10) The Running Man ($1.1 million)
[via The Numbers]
