Many are impressed with the box office numbers for Weapons (2025) as it ran arms-out to the top of the chart this opening weekend above Freakier Friday and The Fantastic Four: First Steps. The horror movie directed by Zach Cregger hit theaters on August 8 and has since become a sleeper hit at both the domestic and international box office. Its story follows the strange disappearance of children from the same elementary-school class. While it’s not based on a true story, the film captured audiences particularly on social media with its well-crafted trailers. Here’s a breakdown of how much Weapons has made at the global box office so far.
How much has Weapons earned in its opening weekend at the box office?
In its opening weekend, Weapons (2025) has earned $43.5 million at the domestic box office and $28.3 million at the international box office for a total of $71.8 million so far.
These box office numbers, which go from August 8 to August 10, are based on Deadline. Specifically on the domestic front, an initial report said that the movie earned $18.1 million on Friday, $14 million on Saturday, and $10.3 million on Sunday in 3,202 theaters (the overall total was adjusted up $1 million by Monday morning). For comparison over the same period of time, Disney’s Freakier Friday had a debut of $29 million in US theatres across 3,975 theaters and The Fantastic Four: First Steps was only able to earn $15.5 million across 3,600 theaters for a 60% decline in its third weekend.
In international markets, Weapons has exceeded the debuts of other movie titles, tracking 29% higher over M3GAN and 34% higher over Evil Dead Rise. Abroad, the horror film performed the best in the UK with a $3.6 million opener, Mexico with $2.7 million, and France with $2 million.
Better yet, this $71.8 million opening weekend performance is especially noteworthy since the production budget for Weapons was only $38 million, according to a report from Variety. This means that the film has almost made twice its budget in just three days, which is an impressive feat.
The film’s $43.5 million performance at the domestic box office actually exceeds predictions from Box Office Theory, which believed that it would earn somewhere between $31-41 million. This was already an increase over the site’s original predictions that were closer to $25 million. That said, this overperformance shows that modern box office tracking which includes social media in its projections is important, given that other sites believed that Weapons would only get $25-$35 million and that Freakier Friday would perform better at $35-45 million in their openers.
The site believes that the movie’s subtle promos that leaned into its mysterious but still relatable premise. This includes a fake website called Maybrookmissing.com, various influencers dropping info at the movie’s specific time of 2:17 AM, and having kids in their pajamas run through various public spaces around the world. All of these promotions led to conversations about the film’s stellar cast featuring Josh Brolin and Julia Garner, continued praise for director Zach Creggar, and how scary the Naruto run could be when put in the context of children disappearing.
It also helps that Weapons has received high praise from both critics and audiences. At the time of writing, on Rotten Tomatoes it holds a 95% from critics based on 239 reviews and an 87% from over 2,500 verified ratings. On Metacritic it stands at an 81 for “universal acclaim” based on 46 critic reviews.
Given the success of Weapons, Cregger has provided hints about a “Weapons 2” sequel that will come after he directs a live-action Resident Evil film and an additional movie past that.
