The Original Scream's Opening Weekend Had All The Makings Of A Box Office Flop

"Scream" is arguably the most famous horror movie to come out of the 1990s, but you wouldn't have guessed that from its opening weekend performance. As UPI reported on December 23, 1996, "Scream" was originally out-shadowed by three other recent releases:

"'Beavis and Butt-head Do America,' the cartoon featuring a pair of wise-cracking and crass MTV adolescents, took in more than $20 million over the weekend. [...] The second weekend of 'Jerry Maguire,' starring Tom Cruise as a sports agent, came in a distant second with $13.1 million at 2,531 theaters. [...] Disney's live-action '101 Dalmatians' remained in third place for the second week in a row, taking in $6.9 million at 2,901 theaters. [...] The opening weekend of Miramax's thriller 'Scream' took fourth place with $6.3 million at 1,413 theaters."

Only $6.3 million for its opening weekend? If "Scream VI" had opened like that, it would've been declared a total disaster and plans for "Scream 7" would've been scrapped right then and there. 

The reason that number seems so low is because the opening weekend is usually a movie's best. You can typically expect a film's earnings to drop by more than half in its second weekend and to only continue dropping from there. If "Scream" had continued on that trajectory, it wouldn't have broken even against its $14 million budget.

Thankfully, those who saw it on opening weekend wouldn't stop raving about it, which caught the attention of other moviegoers. "Scream" ended up being one of the rare movies where its second weekend outdid its first by bringing in $9 million, with its third weekend performing even better. Its earnings declined after that point, but not as much as you'd expect; it was still raking in over $1 million a week as late as 1997's Memorial Day weekend.

The box office triumph of "Scream" is something that's become a lot rarer today, mainly due to how quick studios are to release their films on digital and streaming. Whereas viewers nowadays know they can wait a few weeks and watch a movie at home at their own pace, they had no choice but to get out of their house and buy a ticket to see Wes Craven's horror hit for much of 1997. The DVD for "Scream" didn't even release until December of that year, nearly a whole 12 months after the film premiered in theaters.

But even with today's faster-paced media landscape, movies with long box office legs are still possible. Pixar's "Elemental" was declared a flop in its opening weekend in 2023, for instance, but seven weeks later, it became Pixar's best-performing original movie since the COVID pandemic. Likewise, "Avatar" fans may recall that 2022's "Avatar: The Way of Water" opened to "only" $134.1 million at the domestic box office, which was almost half of what "Spider-Man: No Way Home" had bowed to almost exactly one year prior. However, "The Way of Water" had longer legs, and within a few months, it had surpassed "No Way Home" to become the third top-grossing movie of all time.

It all goes to show that you should never be too quick to dismiss a movie as a total failure. Even movies that never find success in theaters can still gain a second life on streaming (or, in the case of "The Shawshank Redemption," through nonstop TNT reruns). As long as a piece of art is out there in the world, there's always a chance it'll eventually garner the appreciation it deserves.