Weapons Dominates Over 4 New Releases With Incredible Week 2 Box Office Drop For Horror Movie

Weapons has taken No. 1 at the domestic box office for the second weekend in a row. The Zach Cregger horror movie debuted on August 8, taking No. 1 over fellow new release Freakier Friday with a 3-day haul of $43.5 million. By the end of its first full week in theaters, it had surpᴀssed the $100 million milestone worldwide.

Weapons had a great deal of compeтιтion during its sophomore weekend with the arrival of four major new releases. These include the Bob Odenkirk action sequel Nobody 2, Spike Lee’s Kurosawa remake Highest 2 Lowest (his first time working with longtime collaborator Denzel Washington since 2006’s Inside Man), the horror remake Witchboard, and the Sydney Sweeney crime thriller Americana.

Per ᴅᴇᴀᴅline, as of Saturday morning, Weapons is projected to earn a 3-day sophomore weekend gross of $25 million, easily taking No. 1 over the compeтιтion. This sees it dropping just 43% from its opening weekend.

While this is a significantly steeper drop than the year’s earlier original horror hit, Sinners (which only dropped 4.8% in its sophomore frame), it is still a remarkable result considering the fact that the horror genre is typically frontloaded, with harsh week 2 drops of 50% or more.

Meanwhile, projections show that Nobody 2 will take the lead among the weekend’s new releases. However, it is only expected to debut at No. 3 with $9.4 million, landing behind Freakier Friday, which is holding fast at No. 2 with $14.6 million, a 49% drop.

What This Means For Weapons

By hitting No. 1 for the second weekend in a row, 2025’s Weapons has risen into even more rarefied air. Its opening weekend had already made it the third No. 1 horror debut of the year so far, after Ryan Coogler’s smash hit Sinners and the successful supernatural sequel Final Destination Bloodlines.

However, it has now become just the second horror movie of 2025 to top the chart for two weekends in a row, after Sinners. It remains to be seen if Weapons can maintain its position at the top of the chart for longer, breaking Sinners‘ 2025 record, but there is a distinct possibility that it could.

During its third weekend in theaters, Weapons will be squaring off against quite a few new releases, including the dark relationship comedy Splitsville, the Riz Ahmed thriller Relay, the English dub of the Chinese animated hit Ne Zha II, Ethan Coen’s Honey Don’t!, and the Sophie Turner vehicle Trust.

None of these movies are expected to make particularly huge splashes at the domestic box office over the weekend of August 22, so Weapons could potentially triumph with three consecutive weekends on top of the chart, if it maintains a similar audience hold as it has during its sophomore frame.

Our Take On The Weekend Box Office

Bob Odenkirk staring blankly ahead in Nobody 2

Bob Odenkirk staring blankly ahead in Nobody 2
Universal Pictures / courtesy Everett Collection

While this weekend presents a huge win for Weapons, the fact that Nobody 2 couldn’t climb higher is probably a bad sign for the remainder of August. The entire month is dominated by weekends peppered with small to mid-level releases, and Nobody 2, being the second installment of an established action franchise, was the most promising тιтle of them all.

It now seems unlikely that there will be another debut above $10 million until the debut of the upcoming The Conjuring: Last Rites, which arrives on the first weekend of September. While the horror sequel could join Weapons to continue the genre’s dominance over the charts at the end of summer, the marketplace will likely be deathly quiet until then.

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