The producers behind Freaky are probably now pleased as the horror-comedy has succeeded in staying atop the American box office for the second week in a row. The film managed to do this even as coronavirus cases spike in the United States.
Variety reports that the film featuring Kathryn Newton and Vince Vaughn as leads was able to pull in $1.2 million over the weekend, enough to vault over the rest of the week’s competition. The sales came from more than 2,000 locations in the United States.
Universal Pictures, which collaborated on the movie with Blumhouse Productions, says that the movie could make that much even with theaters across the United States closing once again due to an uptick in coronavirus cases. From 3,400 open theaters, the number has now shrunk to 2,800.
Freaky had already conquered the American box office last week with a take of $3.7 million. This means that the film is already well into recouping costs as it only took Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Productions $6 million to make the film.
This second week at the box office is also exactly as Universal’s domestic distribution president, Jim Orr, predicted. Last week, Orr had expressed his confidence that Freaky Friday would have staying power at the box office, especially since big budget movies are few and far between.
Deadline notes that the other top films this week posted much lower figures compared to Freaky. The other films making up the top five are The War With Grandpa, Let Him Go, and Come Play. Honest Thief, which was the top movie two weeks in a row as well, has dropped out of the top five.
Over the weekend, The War With Grandpa earned $733,000, bringing its seven-week total to $16.1 million. Let Him Go, which was the top movie a couple of weeks ago, made $710,000 in its third week, bringing its cumulative total to $7.9 million.
Come Play made $550,000 this weekend, enough for it to snag fourth place. Honest Thief, on the other hand, only made $425,000 and came in at sixth place. Come Play has now made $8 million over four weeks, while Honest Thief has made $13 million over seven weeks.
Whether more theaters are going to close again depends on the state of the global coronavirus pandemic. According to the Nov. 22 update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are now 12,028,081 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country. The number of people that have died from COVID-19 is now at 255,076.