Box Office: ‘Weapons’ Holds Strong With $25M, ‘Nobody 2’ Struggles, Sydney Sweeney’s ‘Americana’ Bombs
Lionsagate
Zach Cregger’s horror hit ‘Weapons’ slays again, Disney’s ‘Freakier Friday’ keeps legs, while Bob Odenkirk’s ‘Nobody 2’ underwhelms and Sydney Sweeney’s ‘Americana’ barely registers.
As the late summer box office continues to surprise, Zach Cregger’s Weapons proved unstoppable in its sophomore weekend, pulling in an impressive $25 million and holding first place with just a 43% drop — rare territory for a horror release. The Warner Bros. thriller has now amassed $148.8 million worldwide, cementing its reputation as the must-see genre sensation of the season.
Disney’s Freakier Friday, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, also showed staying power, earning $14.5 million in its second frame for a domestic cume of $54.9 million and an $86.3 million global total. Modestly budgeted, the body-swap comedy is well on its way to profitability.
Meanwhile, Universal’s Nobody 2 stumbled into third place with just $9.3 million domestically and $14.2 million worldwide, a softer debut than expected despite strong audience reactions (89% on Rotten Tomatoes). The Bob Odenkirk sequel — budgeted at $25 million — will likely find its footing on premium VOD, where Universal has built a reliable playbook.
The weekend’s biggest headline, however, may be the dismal debut of Americana. The Lionsgate Premiere release, starring Sydney Sweeney, Paul Walter Hauser, and Halsey, bombed with just $500,000 from over 1,100 theaters. The heist drama had buzz coming out of its 2023 SXSW premiere and decent reviews, but minimal marketing spend and lingering controversies surrounding Sweeney couldn’t push it past the rerelease of The Grateful Dead Movie, which grossed $550,000. Lionsgate insists the release aligns with its multi-platform strategy, but theatrically, the results are brutal.
Elsewhere in the top 10, Marvel’s Fantastic Four: The First Steps finally stabilized after sharp drops, grossing $8.8 million for a $247 million domestic and $468.7 million global total. DreamWorks’ The Bad Guys 2 cleared $117 million worldwide, Paramount’s The Naked Gun is proving a sleeper comedy hit, and tentpoles like Jurassic World Rebirth($828.5M), James Gunn’s Superman ($594.5M), and Joseph Kosinski’s F1: The Movie ($590M) continue to rack up impressive worldwide numbers.
POPULAR ON THE CINEMA GROUP
A pair of Indian films, Coolie and War 2, broke into the domestic chart with solid niche turnouts, while Japan’s Shin Godzilla 4K earned $2.5 million in its North American rerelease, proving again that international event cinema is becoming a fixture of the U.S. box office.
This weekend underscored the market’s volatility: horror remains the genre to beat, family comedies thrive when budgets stay lean, and even beloved stars like Bob Odenkirk and Sydney Sweeney aren’t immune to underperformance when strategy misfires.
