For Warner Bros., Original Horror Has Scared Up Some of 2025’s Best Box Office Bets

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We hope there’s not the same level of hand-wringing and asterisks thrown around about Zach Cregger’s “Weapons” as there was for Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners,” because a stellar No. 1 opening for “Weapons” now gives Warner Bros. two original horror movies that each opened No. 1 at the box office in 2025.

“Weapons” brought in $71.8 million globally, including $43.5 million domestic, according to Monday’s final totals, easily landing it the top spot ahead of “Freakier Friday” and holdovers like “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.” Warner Bros. (“Weapons” is a New Line Cinema title) now has had seven films this year that have opened No. 1, including “Mickey 17,” “A Minecraft Movie,” “Final Destinations: Bloodlines,” “Superman,” and “F1: The Movie” (which WB released with Apple). New Line also released January’s “Companion,” another original horror film also produced by Cregger, and that film made $36.7 million worldwide.

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While franchise horror films have had their moment this year too, including “28 Years Later,” “Final Destination,” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” other dips back into the IP well have struggled, including “M3GAN 2.0,” “Until Dawn,” and “Wolf Man.” Blumhouse’s slate for the remainder of 2025 also includes several sequels to past hits.

The success of “Weapons” is more ammunition for anyone beating the drum that Hollywood needs to take more risks. And “Weapons,” though not on the budget level of “Sinners,” had its own risks. Not only is it a cryptic, genre-bending original with a not-so-veiled message about grief and trauma in the aftermath of school shootings, Cregger’s film carries a $38 million production budget, a number at which New Line reportedly won a bidding war over Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw banner.

That’s an aggressive number for an emerging filmmaker. His prior film was the sleeper hit “Barbarian,” which wound up grossing $40.8 million domestic and $45.3 million total. “Weapons” has already trounced that, and the better comp could be “Sinners,” which made a similar $48 million in its opening weekend.

“Sinners” had an impressive, hard-to-top hold across weekends, and it’s possible “Weapons” has the hallmarks to potentially do the same. Reviews are equally strong, “Weapons” got an A- CinemaScore to an A for “Sinners,” and “Weapons” (like “Sinners”) also did especially well in IMAX, bringing in $8.1 million globally from IMAX screens compared to $11.1 million global for “Sinners.” IMAX is already planning on holding over “Weapons” on virtually all its domestic screens for another weekend.

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For his next film, Cregger will be dabbling with IP in his take on the video game franchise “Resident Evil,” another property that demanded an aggressive bidding war to win Cregger’s services. But the success of “Weapons” suggests that studios will be lining up to give him a blank check for whatever original idea he hatches next.

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