Horror has been rock solid at the box office throughout 2026. Two of the biggest hits of the summer season thus far have been horror movies. Now? The genre has even done its part to help get theatrical comedies back on track as the new Scary Movie just had itself a downright surprisingly big opening weekend. The Wayans Brothers are back and audiences were very much ready to embrace their brand of spoof comedy once again.
Scary Movie opened to an estimated $55 million domestically, which easily gave it the top spot and was above pre-release projections. It also handily topped Amazon’s big budget live-action take on Masters of the Universe, which debuted to $29.3 million. Sorry, He-Man. The first entry in the franchise since 2013’s Scary Movie V also added $50.5 million overseas for a $105.5 million global start. Against a $30 million budget, it’s instantly profitable for Paramount.
The pattern is surprisingly familiar. In 1996, Scream helped revive the slasher genre. In 2000, Scary Movie became a hit building off of the trilogy’s success. Similarly, Paramount revived Scream several years back, with Scream 7 breaking box office records for the franchise earlier this year. And now Scary Movie is back once again, with the cycle repeating itself. Time is a flat circle.
Directed by Mike Tiddes, the new movie aims to “slash through reboots, remakes, requels, prequels, sequels, spin-offs, elevated horror, origin stories, anything with the word legacy in it, and every ‘final chapter’ that absolutely isn’t final. Nothing is sacred. No trope survives. Every line gets crossed. The Wayans are back to cancel the Cancel Culture.” Marlon Wayans (Shorty), Shawn Wayans (Ray), Anna Faris (Cindy) and Regina Hall (Brenda) all returned to reprise their roles, among others.
It hardly mattered that critics weren’t too kind to the movie. This franchise has never been a critical favorite. What matters is that right now is the sweet spot for late ‘90s/early 2000s nostalgia. This movie managed to capitalize on that in a big way, squeezing a lot of recognizable imagery into the trailers, using everything from Longlegs to Weapons to drive the comedic bits. It worked like gangbusters.
Mind you, this is all happening as Backrooms and Obsession continue to pop off in ways nobody expected. Backrooms added nearly $26 million in its second weekend, now sitting at $212 million worldwide. It’s already A24’s biggest movie ever globally. Meanwhile, Obsession, which has been doing unthinkably well for itself, had another incredibly strong hold. It added $25.6 million, dropping just 7% in its fourth weekend. It’s coming up on $225 million worldwide.
Looking ahead, we’ve got a behemoth coming our way this weekend in the form of Steven Spielberg's new alien motion picture Disclosure Day, which is generating a lot of buzz. We don’t have another big studio horror movie until Evil Dead Burn hits theaters on July 10.
Scary Movie is in theaters now.
