Box Office: ‘The Bride!’ Isn’t Electric; ‘Scream 7’ Goes Silent

Horror is alive and well, though this week’s box office proved even the genre can suffer a few wounds.

Warner Bros. Pictures’ The Bride! – a unique, stylish, and energetic reworking of Frankenstein directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal – was anything but electric at the box office, failing to connect with critics or audiences. The film earned a mixed C+ CinemaScore, a 73% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes’ Popcornmeter, and a 59% critics score. Read our review here.

The results were mixed and divisive, with audiences largely failing to connect with the 1930s Chicago-set story in which Frankenstein (Christian Bale) seeks a scientist’s help to create a companion, but the Bride’s (Jessie Buckley) resurrection unleashes chaos, crime, and a volatile romance.

The Bride! died this weekend with an estimated $7.3M opening this weekend, making it a rare horror flop that will likely flame out at around $25M domestically. It added only $6.3M overseas, for a cumulative $13.6M opening, which is brutal for an $80M price tag.

Last week, Paramount Pictures’ Scream 7 opened with a scream, breaking its own records and stabbing the competition with a massive $64.1M, far surpassing the initial $40M projection.

However, this weekend, Ghostface stumbled down the stairs. Early reports indicate a whopping 75% drop, earning it another estimated $16.3M (still not bad) for a domestic total of $92M. It’s closing in on $150 globally.

Interestingly, Scream 6 saw a similar drop, indicating that this franchise is heavily front-loaded, which means quicker turnaround time to streaming. Keep your eyes peeled.

Fun fact: With the film’s solid run so far, the long-running Scream franchise has crossed the $1 billion global box office milestone.