Freaky, the body-swap horror-comedy produced by Blumhouse, held on to the top spot at the box office this week. The Numbers estimates its domestic tally will reach $5.59 million domestically, $9.24 globally come Monday.
The film, released on the most recent Friday the 13th, stars Kathryn Newton as a high schooler who, on a Friday the 13th, has a Freaky Friday-esque exchange of souls. Only this time it isn’t with her mother, played by Katie Finneran, but with Vince Vaughn, playing a serial killer.
V.F. critic Richard Lawson wrote that director Christopher Landon and co-writer Michael Kennedy turned this elevator pitch “into something rather rich, a riotously funny, odd, and curiously sweet burst of cinematic verve.”
The decent box office (by 2020 pandemic standards) is more impressive considering there have been new roll-backs in some areas. Domestic theater operations have shrunk to 2,800 from 3,400 in the past week. This is in addition to the reduced seating capacities theaters are implementing, with specific guidelines varying from state to state. The two largest markets, New York City and Los Angeles, remain closed.
For a year-to-year comparison, this weekend in 2019 saw Frozen II bringing in $130 million. Freaky indeed.
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