The Horror Boom Continues: ‘Scary Movie’ Eyes $50M Debut With Clever Retro Popcorn Bucket!

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Jun 3, 2026
'Scary Movie' Tracking to Open $45M-50M at the Box Office

The horror box office is completely on fire right now. Absolutely ablaze.

Between Backrooms and Obsession, horror is tearing through everything else in Hollywood and leaving ash in its wake. Poor The Mandalorian and Grogu got beaten to death by these two movies.

And as we head into another weekend, Obsession is looking like it could actually increase for a third straight week, which is almost unheard of, especially considering Backrooms just devoured the entire box office with an $80 million-plus opening weekend.

Now we’ve got two more major releases entering the conversation. First is Masters of the Universe, the long-awaited live-action He-Man adaptation that appeals heavily to a nostalgic older generation. Then there’s Paramount’s Scary Movie, which is technically horror-related, but really plays more as an R-rated comedy aimed at a very different audience.

What’s fascinating about the box office right now is that everything feels different. There isn’t a ton of overlap.

Every movie seems to be serving a different demographic, and that’s exactly why this crowded marketplace is working so well. The box office is packed in a way I honestly can’t remember seeing before. Every weekend feels stacked, and this one is adding even more fuel to the fire.

Next weekend brings Disclosure Day and The Fury into the mix as well, further expanding an already crowded marketplace.

But the key thing is that all of these films are fundamentally different. Scary Movie isn’t competing with Backrooms. It isn’t competing with Obsession. And it isn’t chasing the same audience as Masters of the Universe. It’s an extremely hard R-rated, intentionally offensive comedy, and there really isn’t anything else like it in theaters right now.

That’s why its projected $45 million to $50 million opening isn’t all that surprising. In fact, I called that number a couple of weeks ago because I’m the box office guru.

Truthfully, I think it could even go a little higher.

A few weeks back, I thought it had a shot at Backrooms-level numbers. But with this many movies crowding the marketplace, there’s only so much meat on the bone. Even when every film targets a different audience, they still share the same theatrical ecosystem.

‘Scary Movie’ Popcorn Bucket

Scary Movie is also leaning hard into nostalgia with one of the better theater collectibles we’ve seen in a while. The film is releasing a retro ’90s-style telephone popcorn bucket, essentially turning the kind of phone that defined an entire generation of horror movies into a concession item.

It feels like something we should have gotten for Scream years ago. Ghostface spent decades terrorizing people over the phone, and somehow nobody ever thought to turn one into a popcorn bucket?! Now Scary Movie gets there first.

It’s exactly the kind of dumb, fun marketing stunt that fits the franchise perfectly.

That’s what makes this moment so unusual. The box office isn’t being carried by one giant movie. It’s being carried by a whole slate of films that are all finding their own audience at the exact same time.

For the first time in a long time, Hollywood isn’t relying on a single tentpole to save the summer. It’s relying on a packed schedule of movies that all offer something completely different. Right now, audiences seem more than willing to show up for all of them.

Scary Movie opens in theaters this Friday.

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