‘Five Nights at Freddy’s 2’ scares up audiences to top weekend box office

By Auzinea Bacon, CNN

(CNN) — Sequels are the gift that keeps on giving for Hollywood this holiday season.

Universal Pictures’ “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” zoomed past Disney’s “Zootopia 2” to take the top spot at the weekend box office. The video game adaptation grossed an estimated $63 million domestically.

“Freddy’s 2” blew past estimates that it would earn as much as $55 million. The first “Freddy’s” movie, based on the video game series with jump-scaring animatronics, opened in 2023 to $80 million and finished with $137.3 million domestically — the highest-grossing horror movie that year.

The “Zootopia” sequel finished No. 2 this weekend with $43 million to raise its domestic gross to about $220 million since opening last weekend.

“After a lot of hand-wringing over the October box office, which was a decades-low result, there’s no better way to start December for movie theaters,” said Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Comscore.

And Universal Pictures’ “Wicked: For Good,” the sequel to last year’s blockbuster, finished third overall with $16.75 million. The musical fantasy film is closing in on $300 million at the domestic box office.

It’s not just sequels that are luring audiences to theaters. The horror genre has driven wins at the box office this year, with Warner Bros. Pictures’ “Sinners,” “The Conjuring: Last Rites” and “Weapons,” alongside Universal’s “Black Phone 2” and Sony Pictures’ “28 Years Later.” Warner Bros. Discovery is the parent company of CNN.

Altogether, this year’s horror titles could earn $2.65 billion in total, which is roughly 14% of Hollywood’s worldwide business, according to David A. Gross, who publishes industry newsletter FranchiseRe.

Rounding out the weekend box office was “Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution” — a GKids compilation of its Season 2 arc and kicking off the third season — which finished fourth with $10.15 million. “Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution’s” compilation format could be “easier to digest” for new audiences, noted Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of analytics firm Box Office Theory.

Lionsgate Films’ “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” ($3.5 million), the third installment of the heist film series, finished No. 5, and “Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair” ($3.25 million), filmmaker Quentin Tarantino’s 270-minute revenge saga released in two volumes in 2003 and 2004, came in sixth.

“This is one of the most eclectic movie marketplaces I’ve ever seen,” said Dergarabedian.

Earnings this weekend totaled a better-than-expected $154 million domestic weekend, according to Comscore. It’s a good sign for the final month of the year as Hollywood crosses its fingers in hopes of reaching the $9 billion earnings mark. Since the pandemic of 2020, the box office has only reached that total in 2023, the year of “Barbenheimer.”

Disney’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” is expected to provide an additional boost. It opens on December 19, alongside Lionsgate Films’ “Housemaid” and Paramount Pictures’ “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants.”

Robbins noted that “Housemaid” could be a sleeper holiday hit and part of what he called an “interesting trio of openers” with broad audience appeal.

“To see another major female-driven movie out there during peak movie-going season, is really important,” he said, noting “Avatar” can draw a male-centered audience and “SpongeBob” can draw a family audience.

Movies opening on Christmas Day will also provide a boost, such as A24’s wide release of “Marty Supreme,” Focus Features’ “Song Sung Blue” and Sony’s “Anaconda.”

“The 9 billion mark could be a challenge to reach. That’s no easy task … but I’m cautiously optimistic,” said Dergarabedian.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.