411 Box Office Report: Final Destination: Bloodlines Rules With $51 Million Start

Death ruled the box office this weekend as Final Destination: Bloodlines soared to a franchise record opening. The revival of the horror franchise opened with a massive $51 million to easily win the weekend, a massive overperformance from where it was expected to open. The start nearly doubled the previous best for the Final Destination films, which was The Final Destination’s $27.4 million opening in August 2009. It’s nearly triple the $18 million that Final Destination 5 launched with in August of 2011.

It goes without saying that this is a huge win for the franchise and gives Warner Bros. yet another blow-away success for 2025 following the blockbuster performances of A Minecraft Movie and Sinners. Predictions coming into the weekend had the film pegged at $35 million to $40 million, but it soon became clear that those expectations were history when it scored $21 million on Friday (and an additional $5.5 million in Thursday previews). The film then held on well throughout the weekend to come out where it did.

How did this happen? Quite simple: a combination of positive sentiment toward the franchise, which has long been considered a favorite for horror fans, and incredibly positive buzz leading up to the film’s release. We’ve said it before: horror doesn’t generally sink on bad reviews, but positive ones boost the genre quite a bit and the 93% RT critic score certainly helped. The previous best RT aggregate was 63% for the fifth film, so the positive scores aided in awareness. And word of mouth is very strong too at a B+, on par with the scores for the second, third and fifth entries.

Add some savvy marketing efforts, and you have a film with more breakaway success than a log falling off a truck. The film added another $51 million overseas for $102 million worldwide to start, putting it on the path of blockbuster success against a $50 million budget. While this franchise does flame out a little faster than some horror series, the positive word of mouth will help it along and as of now the film seems likely to pass the $140 million mark domestically, perhaps higher if upcoming genre films don’t steal too much of its shine.

The Thunderbolts* fell down to second place with a decent $16.5 million, down 49% from last weekend. The MCU film continues to close ground on Captain America: Brave New World and now has $155.4 million domestically and $325.7 million worldwide against a $180 million budget. With the solid holds continuing both domestically and overseas, it looks like it will turn a little bit of profit against its $180 million production budget and should make it to around $210 million stateside.

Sinners remains the vampire film that won’t say die, as it was off just 30% in its fifth weekend to $15.4 million. That hold is especially good when you consider how many horror fans Final Destination stole away. Sinners is a box office smash at this point with $240.8 million domestically and $325.7 million worldwide, with a potential for $275 million domestically by the end of its run.

A Minecraft Movie had a great hold, down just 23% in its seventh weekend to chalk up $5.9 million. The video game adaptation now stands at hit at $416.6 million in the US and $925.8 million worldwide, enormous numbers against a $150 million production budget. It’s looking likely for around $430 million at this point.

The Accountant 2 also had a very good hold as it was down just 26% in its fourth weekend to $5 million. The film is about where Amazon MGM Studios expected and as previously noted, the studio just needs it to cover marketing and distribution costs before it heads to Prime Video to make Amazon its profit. The action thriller now has $59.1 million domestically and $90.3 million worldwide. The production budget was $80 million.

The Weeknd was not a box office draw this – err, weekend as Hurry Up Tomorrow scratched up $3.3 million. That’s even below the modest mid-single digit start that was expected for the psychological thriller starring the music star. The Trey Edward Shults-written and directed film opened below that of his 2017 horror film It Comes at Night, which opened to $6 million despite having less star power and promotion.

Still, Lionsgate insists that the film is already profitable for them. The studio picked the film up solely for distribution and so Hurry Up Tomorrow’s $15 million production budget doesn’t come down on them and they did very little marking around it, allowing The Weeknd to handle most of that via his social media outreach. The film served as additional promotion for his album and tour, and if you consider its budget as essentially marketing costs for those then it’s going to be successful.

All that said, as a movie it’s not going to be a theatrical success on its own when all is said and done. Lionsgate is in the clear and Weeknd is not worrying about it, but the lousy 15% RT critic aggregate and so-so word of mouth (C- CinemaScore, 70% RT audience score) means this will vanish pretty quickly and may not even be in the top 10 next week. It will be lucky to reach $10 million.

A24’s comedy Friendship saw success in very limited release, grossing $1.4 million in just 60 theaters. The film, which stars Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd, scored positive reviews at an 89% aggregated RT critic score and an 84% RT audience rating.

It would be hard to guess at Friendship’s box office ceiling, as it largely depends on how A24 handles it from here. Expanding wider is already set for next weekend, but it’s not clear how wide that will be. An extended run for this film would do it quite good. No word on the budget yet, but it seems poised for at least some level of success for the studio.

Cown In a Cornfield suffered an expected heavy drop in its second weekend. The slasher flick took a hit from Final Destination and dropped 63% from its opening weekend. The film was never expected to have very strong holds, especially considering the somewhat divisive word of mouth, but it’s already looking like a success with $6.3 million domestically and $6.6 million worldwide against a less than $1 million budget. It should still be able to make it to around $8 million to $9 million before it arrives on home viewing.

Until Dawn is also a lower-profile horror hit for Sony Pictures, even as it dropped 59% in its fourth weekend to $800,000. The video game adaptation has $19.6 million domestically but is doing better overseas with $49.6 million worldwide against a $15 million budget. It’s on course for about $22 million domestically or so.

The Amateur finished out the top 10 with $712,000, down 39% in its sixth weekend. The action-thriller has totaled $40.1 million in the US and $93.3 million worldwide against a $40 million budget, meaning it will be slightly profitable. The final total in the US should be around $41 million.

Next weekend will be Memorial Day and will be dominated by the live-action Lilo & Stitch movie, which is aiming for around $120 million to $130 million. Also opening is Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning which looks to do around $80 million (perhaps more).

BOX OFFICE TOP TEN (Three-Day Domestic Numbers)
1. Final Destination: Bloodlines – $51 million ($51 million total, $102 million WW)
2. Thunderbolts* – $16.5 million ($155.4 million total, $325.7 million WW)
3. Sinners – $15.4 million ($240.8 million total, $316.8 million WW)
4. A Minecraft Movie – $5.9 million ($416.6 million total, $925.8 million WW)
5. The Accountant 2 – $5 million ($59.1 million total, $90.3 million WW)
6. Hurry Up Tomorrow – $3.3 million ($3.3 million total, $3.3 million WW)
7. Friendship – $1.4 million ($2 million total, $2 million WW)
8. Clown In a Cornfield – $1.3 million ($6.3 million total, $6.6 million WW)
9. Until Dawn – $800,000 ($19.6 million total, $49.6 million WW)
10. The Amateur – $712,000 ($40.1 million total, $93.3 million WW)