Universal/Blumhouse’s big screen version of nine-year-old videogame Five Nights at Freddy’s has hit an unprecedented $78M opening, $4.4M shy of what Uni wowed with earlier this summer in firing up Oppenheimer ($82.4M).
Rivals are spotting $80M. Some in the business, including exhibition, will argue that they saw this tidal wave coming, that they saw big numbers right in front of them — and you were right. Yet, while presales indicated a huge hit, the whole Peacock day-and-date of it all, which wound up knocking out projections on Halloween Ends a year ago (projected at $50M+, came in at $40M), was the swing factor here. On the Peacock side, the studio exclaims that the Emma Tammi-directed Freddy’s had the biggest opening for the OTT service, and it’s the most-watched and most subscription-driving content title since it dropped on Thursday night.
Another reason this was hard to predict despite the robust estimated $25M (not $11M, as we first heard) presales boils down to the 13-17 demo, which can be finicky. Remember how everyone was projecting a $100M-$125M opening for Taylor Swift: Eras Tour concert film? And it came in under at $92.8M. While Thursday night came in higher than what many expected ($10M+ to $7M+), that 13-17 crowd exploded on Friday night after 6 PM, sending projections earlier at $68M to what the weekend looks to be settling in now.
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