Five Nights at Freddy’s Delivers Big Opening Weekend
Welcome to another weekly installment of Couch Potato, where I go over what went down on the big and small screens so you can be a better-informed viewer.
Five Nights at Freddy’s brought big smiles to the faces of the executives at Universal as the spooky season came to a close. As regular readers will know, the horror genre is always great for the studios as they cost very little and can bring in big money if handled correctly. Five Nights at Freddy’s did great for horror movies and video game adaptations alike, as it received the biggest Halloween weekend opening of all time and was the second-biggest video game movie opening of all time behind The Super Mario Bros. Movie. If you visited your local cinema this week, you may have seen fans show up in costumes and big groups to show their support, and the box office totals reaped the benefits with $78 million domestically and $130 million worldwide in its opening weekend.
This brought Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour down to second place, earning another $14.7 million, which places its domestic total just on the edge of $150 million. Unfortunately, there had to be a big loser in the “Top of the Top 10” this week, and it looks like Killers of the Flower Moon gets to have that title. It could only pick up the scraps left behind with $9 million in a huge second-weekend drop of 61%. That wouldn’t be so bad if it were a major blockbuster, but it didn’t have the opening weekend to support such a massive drop. Wrestling fans showed some mild support for John Cena, but it was very mild, with Freelance opening at $2.06 million, earning it 7th place in the top 10. After Death didn’t get much love either because, apparently, no one felt like doing deep thinking this weekend, with the movie earning just $5 million in its debut.
Over on the Netflix charts, there was a total swap when it came to movies due to two debuts dropping. Old Dads came in first with over 13 million views in its debut, while The Devil on Trial was right behind it with 8 million views. Finally, Gemini Man maintained its surprise climb into its fifth week in the Top 10, but only its second week in the “Top of the Top 10,” claiming third place with 7 million views. This bumped Reptile to fourth place, only a few hundred thousand views behind it.
Meanwhile, when it came to television shows, The Fall of the House of Usher found its audience in a big way, climbing to first place with 65 million hours viewed. This forced Beckham to settle for second place for the first time since it debuted, adding another 32 million hours viewed to its total this week. Finally, true crime fans showed their support for Bodies, which debuted in third place, rounding out the “Top of the Top 10.”
Next week, there’s no real competition at the multiplex, so I expect the order will be the same. Who knows, though, maybe Elvis fans will prove me wrong with Priscilla or Meg Ryan fans with What Happens Later, both of which will be debuting.
Stay tuned for that, and until next time, happy viewing!
Special to The Central Observer, Elton Allen
About the Author
Elton Allen is thrilled to be a contributing author on The Central Observer. As a proud native of Central Jersey, he looks forward to getting to help out a publication based right out of his backyard. He proudly runs the Couch Potato Corner and our Health & Wellness section. His professional writing background spans nearly a decade and covers a variety of industries, including healthcare, marketing, career counseling, entertainment, and more.