‘Scream VI’ Opens with $5.7 Million in Thursday Previews

Paramount is eyeing a franchise-best debut for Scream VI, which slashed its way to $5.7 million in box office previews on Thursday. The film kicked off its nationwide release with a fan event at 5 pm, before going wide into over 3,100 theaters half-an-hour later. The sixth film in the iconic horror franchise is on track to finish between $35 million and $40 million in its first weekend, and is expanding into more than 3,600 theaters today.

Anything above $34.7 million would put it ahead of 2000’s Scream 3, which currently holds the record for the top debut in the series’ history, unadjusted for inflation, of course. Worldwide, Scream VI is headed towards a $50 million debut. By comparison, last year’s fifth Scream made $3.5 million on Thursday, on its way to a $30 million opening weekend. Scream VI’s $5.7 million preview haul is also bigger than the $5.45 million that last week’s Creed III made on Thursday, on its way to a franchise-topping $58 million weekend.

Diving further into the box office performance of the Scream franchise, the first film made $6.3 million in its opening weekend in 1996, and finished with $173 million worldwide. Scream 2 delivered a $32 million opening weekend just a year later, and finished with roughly the same figure as the first film globally. Scream 3 tapped out with $161 million worldwide, and 2011’s Scream 4 finished with $95 million worldwide after an $18 million opening weekend. The fourth Scream also happened to be filmmaker Wes Craven’s final entry in the franchise, known for its meta commentary on slasher cinema and tongue-in-cheek humor.

RELATED: ‘Scream VI’ Review: Ghostface Slices Through NYC in This Nostalgia-Filled Blast

Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, also known collectively as Radio Silence, injected new life into the series with last year’s positively reviewed fifth installment, which ended its global run with nearly $140 million (at a significantly more precarious time during the pandemic). Scream VI, also directed by Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett, is almost certainly going to deliver bigger grosses. The film, which cost a reported $35 million to produce, takes the action out of the fictional town of Woodsboro for the first time, and to New York City, where the survivors from the last film are once again haunted by the villainous Ghostface killer.

Elsewhere, the week’s second major new release, the science-fiction action film 65, grossed $1.2 million in previews. Directed by A Quiet Place writers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods and starring Adam Driver, the poorly-reviewed film is on track for a mild opening between $7 million and $9 million, against a reported budget of $45 million. Also opening wide is the sports comedy Champions, starring Woody Harrelson as the coach of a team of differently abled basketball players. The film is eyeing a mid-teens debut. Holdover hit Creed III will challenge Scream VI for the top spot this weekend, after grossing $3 million on its second Thursday, which took its running domestic total just under $75 million. Cocaine Bear grossed $840,000 on Thursday and topped $45 million domestically, while Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania made $775,000, and took its running domestic total to just over $190 million.

Scream VI features returning cast members Jenna Ortega, Melissa Barrera, Mason Gooding, Jasmin Savoy Brown, and Courteney Cox. You can watch our interview with Ortega and Barrera here, and stay tuned to Collider for more box office coverage over the weekend.