Scream 6 Needed Just 24 Hours To Set An Impressive Record
Scream 6, in one day, is already set for the largest opening in franchise history, beating Scream 3 by over $10 million.
2023 is proving to us that the horror genre is not only alive and well but thriving. Deadline’s latest box office count for Scream 6’s opening weekend tallies the film at $43 million. This is a new record for the Scream franchise, beating out 2000’s Scream 3, which had a $34.7 million opening weekend. It’s safe to say that the only thing higher than the body count at the behest of Ghostface is the box office numbers, which will continue to climb.
One of the reasons the Scream franchise is so successful is its use of meta-humor throughout the films. Some horror flicks tend to be all doom and gloom, but Scream has always had a high self-awareness that often points out horror stereotypes and then flips the script in unique ways. We can expect more of the same with Scream 6, as Ghostface takes on New York City to track down Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), Sam and Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega), and Kirby Reed, among several others.
The Scream franchise was kicked off by Wes Craven in 1996 and follows the lives of high school students in Woodsboro, a small fictional town in California. Craven knocked it out of the park with Scream and, in a way, reinvented the slasher genre with a new kind of serial killer; Scream was not only visceral and gory but funny, which was pretty much unheard of at the time in mainstream horror. With Radio Silence taking the reins, they know this sentiment well, continue to deliver the goods, and have the box office numbers to prove it.
Radio Silence is the production collective of that brought us films such as V/H/S, Devil’s Due, and 2022’s Scream, which is the fifth installment of the franchise. The collective, formed in 2011 by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez, and Chad Villella, continue to give audiences what they want with Scream 6 by continuing to expertly blend horror and comedy in ways that keep viewers at the edge of their seats while finding just the right moments to relieve the tension. Though Scream 6 takes place in the Big Apple, our protagonists cannot escape the past; you can take the survivors out of Woodsboro, but the bloodshed will ultimately follow them to a new city.
Fans and critics alike are on board with Scream 6, and the film is currently pulling a 76 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. While some think some aspects of the meta-horror franchise are growing stale, the opening weekend box office numbers say otherwise. Sometimes a change of scenery is all a franchise needs to continue the blood bath. There have already been talks about working on a Scream 7, but nothing is concrete.
Though the identity of Ghostface is ever-changing, the one constant in the Scream franchise is the kill count. We’ve seen horror franchises continue despite poor ratings(looking over at you Friday the 13th), but Scream 6 is again flipping the script and keeping the franchise relevant almost 30 years later. We won’t know the total box office numbers until Scream 6 finishes its theater run, but the numbers are as intimidating as a late-night phone call from Ghostface himself.
