INSIDIOUS 5: THE RED DOOR opening | SOUND OF FREEDOM opening | JOY RIDE opening | July 7 to 9, 2023 weekend
Opening weekend box office, charts and commentary
The current weekend: July 7 to 9, 2023
1) Insidious 5: The Red Door opening
- This is an excellent opening for episode #5 of a horror series. The weekend number is better than average for the genre, and it’s up on the the last opening in 2018. Insidious 2 remains the biggest domestic opener with $40.3m in September 2013, but the last two films have shown healthy growth. This series is in good shape:
Insidious is in elite company, joining Resident Evil, Scream, Saw, Texas Chainsaw, and 11 other horror series with five episodes. This is the third distributor handling the series (Screen Gems). At a cost of approx. $16m and with good foreign potential, this is another smart, profitable Blumhouse production — Blumhouse rarely misses.
2) Sound of Freedom opening
- This is a strong 3-day opening, on top of $22m between Tuesday and Thursday. The movie features a patriotic white American who becomes a vigilante to stop child trafficking in Latin America. The motivation is personal and religious — everyone's a child of God. That’s how the film is being presented in the U.S., as an inspirational/Christian thriller.
- There’s support for the movie from white conservative political groups, but a third of the audience is Hispanic. The inspiration, action, and Latin America-based story are drawing a diverse audience, not just ethnically but in age and gender as well (more than half the audience is over 45, more than half the audience female):
The film wasn’t expensive to make (around $14.5m). It was produced by Fox in 2018 and languished after the transition to Disney. Now it’s an independent release. One of the two writers, the director and the producer are Mexican filmmakers. What a project.
- The trailer is here (worth watching to the end).
3) Joy Ride opening
- This is a weak opening for a romantic/sex comedy. Reviews are outstanding, while audience scores are fair. Joy Ride will face some limitations overseas, where Crazy Rich Asians played well in English-speaking markets, but not elsewhere and not in Asian countries, except in Indonesia, which has a big Chinese population:
An overview of romantic/sex comedies from two weeks ago is here. No Hard Feelings is holding up well. Barbie arrives in two weeks. These three titles represent a busy stretch for the genre. With the strongest releases ahead, it's too early to draw conclusions about the year.
- Mission: Impossible 7 opens on Wednesday. Early reviews are sensational (currently 99 Rotten Tomatoes), and Tom Cruise is at the peak of his popularity. This is a relatively quiet weekend. In a few days, business is going to jump.