Disney’s highly anticipated Freakier Friday and Warner Bros.’ and New Line’s critical darling Weapons are headed for a lively late-summer showdown at the box office in what could be a boost for two genres that have struggled on the big screen — comedies and horror.
Many are predicting that the duo will take the top two spots on the Aug. 8-10 chart, with Marvel Studios holdover The Fantastic Four: The First Steps coming in an unlucky third after dropping an alarming 67 percent to $38.6 million in its second outing over the Aug. 1-3 weekend. Marvel and parent company Disney are still hopeful that Fantastic Four will rebound, but there are no assurances.
Thanks to a dearth of product this summer targeting females, combined with the nostalgia factor, Freakier Friday — reuniting Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis 23 years after Freaky Friday opened — has a slight edge over Weapons in tracking, which pegs it at opening in the $28 million range domestically. That would be a stellar start for a pic costing a modest $42 million before marketing.
Directed by Nisha Ganatra, the movie picks up after the events of the first film, when Lohan’s character, Tess, swapped bodies with her mother, played by Curtis. This time out, in a multigenerational twist, they find themselves swapping places, respectively, with the daughter and soon-to-be stepdaughter of Tess. Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons, Manny Jacinto, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Rosalind Chao, Chad Michael Murray, Vanessa Bayer, and Mark Harmon also star.
The Freaky Friday franchise, which also includes a 1976 film, is based on the book by Mary Rodgers. Disney has enjoyed great success in tapping into nostalgia and luring moviegoers in their 20s and 30s who grew up on previous movies in its library. For example, it’s live-action tentpole Lilo & Stitch, based on the 2002 animated film, is the only Hollywood pic of 2025 so far to clear the $1 billion milestone after attracting both families and non-parents.
Additionally, Freakier Friday is the first event film since Lilo & Stitch to target females after a summer marquee rife with male-skewing tentpoles. Another fun tidbit: after all this time, the 2003 film has popped up on the top 10 list of most watched films on Disney+ in the last week or so.
Film studios execs across Hollywood lament how comedies have become an endangered species in the streaming age. Last weekend, Paramount’s Naked Gun reboot bucked this trend in opening to nearly $17 million domestically. While that film is considered more of a straight-up comedy, versus a family comedy such as Freakier Friday, it will be good news for all if they both work.
Horror could also use a win after such box office bombs as Blumhouse and Atomic Monsters’ M3GAN 2.0, which opened to only $10 million in June on its way to topping at $40 million worldwide, compared to $180 million for the first film.
Zach Cregger’s Weapons — which currently boasts a perfect 100 percent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes — is tracking for a $25 million debut, but could easily come in higher. The package for the R-rated title was the subject of a heated bidding battle, with New Line and Warner Bros. prevailing in winning the $38 million budgeted film, which including a $10 million payday for Cregger, who made waves with his debut feature film, 2022’s Barbarian, which he both wrote and directed.
Also an original story, Weapons stars Julia Garner as a teacher who learns that 17 of the 18 children in her classroom simultaneously got out of bed and ran off into the night the exact same time, 2:17 a.m. Josh Brolin plays a grieving father who is intent on finding his missing child, and is suspicious that the young teacher had something to do with it.
Aden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams and Amy Madigan also star in Weapons, which will be playing on coveted Imax Screens (Imax is also rereleasing summer hit 51: The Movie on select screens this weekend before offering more showings the following week.)
Freakier Friday will have advantage of playing in hundreds of other premium large format screens, including Dolby Cinema auditoriums.