The box office battle between Freakier Friday and Weapons has kicked off with one taking a decisive lead on Thursday night. The former is a comedy legacy sequel that reunites original stars Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, while the latter is an original horror movie that is director Zach Cregger’s follow-up to his surprise 2022 hit Barbarian.

Both movies are projected to topple the Marvel superhero movie The Fantastic Four: First Steps from its perch atop the domestic box office chart. However, they are currently in a neck-and-neck race for No. 1. Critically, Weapons has pulled ahead with a Certified Fresh 96% Rotten Tomatoes score.

Freakier Friday reviews have been solid too, just less so. Its Rotten Tomatoes score currently stands at a Certified Fresh 73%.

Per ᴅᴇᴀᴅline, Weapons earned $5.7 million at the domestic box office during Thursday previews, while Freakier Friday earned $3.1 million. Weapons has taken the lead in spite of playing in considerably fewer theaters. The Disney comedy is playing on 3,975 screens, while the horror movie only played in 3,000 on Thursday night, with the number rising to 3,200 on Friday.

What This Means For Weapons

It is remarkable that Zach Cregger’s Weapons was able to earn nearly double the preview haul of Freakier Friday, considering the fact that it is an R-rated movie, whereas the comedy sequel is rated PG. Because of the age restrictions of the R rating, R movies typically have more limited audiences than PG ones.

This is reflected by the fact that only two of the highest-grossing R-rated movies in history, ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine and Joker, have grossed more than $1 billion, whereas 19 PG-rated movies have done so, including Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, 2025’s Lilo & Sтιтch, and Inside Out 2.

Additionally, in a year that has already been kind to the genre, Weapons‘ preview totals are higher than those of the two highest-grossing horror movies of the year, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners ($4.7 million) and the supernatural franchise sequel Final Destination Bloodlines ($5.5 million).

Our Take On The Week’s Box Office Previews

While Weapons has taken a decisive lead, the Freakier Friday release is not out of the game just yet. Family movies tend to have more slow-and-steady growth whereas horror тιтles are frequently frontloaded, with large Friday hauls followed by dips on Saturday and Sunday.

This could certainly be the case for Weapons, especially because Barbarian‘s twists and turns may have taught audience members to see Cregger movies as soon as possible in order to avoid being spoiled. Therefore, even though Freakier Friday fell behind on Thursday, it still has time to catch up.

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