Released and broke series records, North America especially loves horror films

On March 10, the new work of the horror series "Scream 6" was released worldwide.

"Scream 6" is directed by Matt Bettinelli-Orpin and Taylor Gillett, Courteney Cox and Jenna Ortega, who became popular with the Netflix series "Wednesday", and other returning casts, telling the story of Ghostface Killer continues his killing after the end of the previous episode, this time will follow the survivors of the upper part to leave Woodsboro and open a new bloody chapter with female reporter Gale and others.

As expected, "Scream 6" topped the North American list with more than $40 million, breaking the series record set by the third film 23 years ago, and also won a good box office in overseas markets; Since the official reboot last year, the sequel to "Scream" has been both applauded and popular, not only continuing the golden signboard of the "hack" type of horror film, but also expanding new space for Paramount's content library.

The opening broke through the extreme value of the series, and positive reviews pushed up expectations

According to The-Numbers, "Scream 6" grossed $5.7 million in advance, second only to "No" ($6.4 million) in the past two years of horror films. Subsequently, "Scream 6" was rolled out to 3,675 theaters in North America, and won a total of $19.29 million on Friday, beating "Quidi 3" to win the single-day championship; In the next two days, "Scream 6" fell 20 and 37% month-on-month, and the weekend box office finally closed at $44.45 million, with a single library revenue of $12,000.

In this year's new films, "Scream 6" is enough to rank in the top three, second only to "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantum Frenzy" and "Quidi 3"; Inside the series, this achievement far surpassed last January's "Scream 5" ($30.02 million), and beat 2000's "Scream 3" ($34.71 million) to set its own opening record.

From the perspective of word of mouth, the freshness of "Scream 6" on Rotten Tomatoes is 77%, and film critics said that the change in plot creativity maintained the original horror elements of the series; On the other hand, the popcorn index, which characterizes audience preference, reached 92%, showing that the new "core foursome" is supported by fans of the old version. On IMDb, the average score of "Scream 6" is 7.3 points (19,000 reviews), which is also higher than the 6.3 points of "Scream 5". With better reviews than its predecessor, "Scream 6" is expected to become the third work in the series to break 100 million.

While "Scream 6" swept theaters, another new film "Escape from the Cretaceous" started slightly silently, ranking third with a weekend result of $12.33 million, behind "Quidi 3" the week after its release; This sci-fi film created by Sony cost $91 million, and the local box office may stop at about $50 million, and the follow-up can only hope for online rental and other channels to return the cost. The sports comedy "Master of Champions" received $5.15 million, only 40% of last month's "Star-Chasing Granny Group" ($12.7 million), which can only be regarded as tepid in the same genre.

With the strong output of "Scream 6", the North American weekend closed at $116 million, basically the same as when "Quidi 3" led the previous week. As of last Monday, the total box office for March had climbed to $291 million, nearly half of last year's $589 million for the whole month; Films such as Wrath of the Gods, Fast Hunt 4 and Dungeons & Dragons: Rogue Honor hit the market, with blockbuster titles hitting the big screen in the next three weeks, with monthly earnings set to hit the $700 million target.

"Thunder Shazam! Wrath of the Gods, Fast Hunt 4, Dungeons & Dragons: Rogue Glory

Horror classics swept the screen, and the project restart was a first success

More than 26 years after the first film came out, "Scream 6" still shows a strong box office appeal, making this series firmly in the first row of "hacking" horror films.

In December 1996, "Scream", directed by Wes Craven and starring Neve Campbell and Skeeter Ulrich, was officially released, earning $6.35 million in 1,413 theaters, and the box office was not obvious in the first weekend; However, with the "Christmas file" and the good news of the New Year holiday, "Scream" then bucked the trend for two consecutive weeks, and expanded to nearly 2,000 theaters at most.

After a re-screening in April, "Scream" ended at home for $103 million, becoming the first work in Miramax's history to exceed 100 million; if you add overseas revenue, "Scream" reached $173 million worldwide, equivalent to 11.5 times the production cost ($15 million).

"Scream" released in 1996

Just a year later, Miramax launched "Scream 2" while the iron was hot, and the North American premiere soared to $32.93 million, but the total harvest fell slightly to $101 million, and the global box office was roughly equal to its predecessor. In February 2000, although "Scream 3" opened to a new high, North America fell further to $89.14 million, while overseas remained at $72.69 million. However, the series has become the end of a strong force at this time, and the film side has no choice but to hide it for more than ten years.

In 2011, the re-emergence of "Scream 4" could not escape the fate of diving, and after opening $18.69 million in the first weekend, North America plummeted to $38.18 million, and the overseas box office also shrank to $58.96 million. With the death of core creator Wes Craven, the "Scream" movie has once again been shelved. Even so, the first four films of "Scream" still reached $600 million at the global box office.

Until last year, 11 years had passed since the last end of Scream, and series creator Wes Craven died in 2015. When Paramount decided to restart the production of "Scream" Part 5, the guide tube was given to Matt Bettinelli-Orpin and Taylor Gillette, who have directed horror films such as "The Devil's Due Date" and "Is It Ready".

The script for "Scream 5" was written by James Vanderbilt and Guy Beyosik, and the original screenwriter of the series, Kevin Williamson, turned executive producer. In terms of actors, old faces such as Courteney Cox, David Arquette and Neve Campbell have returned, while Roger Jackson has re-contributed to the classic character Ghostface Killer, and with a new lineup composed of the younger generation, the configuration form is the same as the 2021 fire "Ghostbusters".

"Devil's Due Date" and "Are You Ready"

In January 2022, "Scream 5" grossed $3.5 million in 3,000 theaters at zero point, then expanded to 3,664 theaters and exceeded $30 million in the first weekend, eventually reaching $81.64 million in North America and $139 million worldwide. It is disclosed that the production cost of "Scream 5" is 24 million US dollars, so the return on investment ratio of the film company reaches 5.8 times. It is worth mentioning that the freshness of Rotten Tomatoes in "Scream 5" has reached 76%, which is the most word-of-mouth work since the second part.

This time, "Scream 6" builds on the previous work, not only maintaining a peak of more than 20 years in the third part of the series in North America, but also continuing to maintain an upward growth trend outside the local market. According to Comscore, "Scream 6" landed in 54 countries and regions, with a global box office of $67.1 million in the first week, and overseas markets contributed nearly 1/3 of the share.

Among them, Australia (US$1.94 million), Brazil (US$1.8 million), Italy (US$830,000) and other outstanding results, will be released in Denmark and Finland before the end of the month. If "Scream 6" maintains a similar trajectory to its predecessor, the world may even have a chance to move closer to the 200 million line.

In the face of the hot market of the sixth part of the series, it is only a matter of time before Paramount produces more works in the future.