‘The Black Phone 2’ leads US box office to Blumhouse’s relief

So far in 2025, horror has conquered the public with titles such as ‘Weapons’ (New Line Cinema and Warner Bros.), ‘Final Destination: Blood Ties’ (New Line Cinema) and ‘The Sinners’ (Warner Bros.) leading the box office in their releases, however, Blumhouse had not achieved the same even with ‘Wolfman’ (beaten by ‘Mufasa: The Lion King’ and ‘One of Them Days’), ‘The Shadow Woman’ (beaten by ‘A Working Man’, ‘Snow White’ and ‘The Chosen’), ‘The Date’ (was released fifth) or ‘M3GAN 2.0’ (beaten by ‘F1: The Movie’, ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ and ‘Elio’). Until ’28 Years Later’, without being a hit, it kept Columbia Pictures and Danny Boyle happy; but it seems that Jason Blum’s bad streak has finally come to an end.

And ‘Black Phone 2’ has been released even surpassing its predecessor, with an estimated collection (provisional data is still available) of 24.4 million dollars in 3 daysfrom October 17 to 19. Scott Derrickson has directed both films and for the first he had a budget of 18 million for production and 72 for advertising, according to data from Deadline, and it went on to gross 161 million dollars worldwide. Curiously, this second part is mainly conquering a Latin and Hispanic audience (39% of its audience) and with 63% of the audience between 18 and 34 years old.

In second place will be ‘Tron: Ares’, which suffers a 65 percent drop in its second week of release and will only earn another 11 million dollars, raising its domestic total to 54.4 million. A new failure for Jared Leto. In third place, another fiasco, but at least it is released: ‘Good Fortune’, written, directed and starring Aziz Ansari. The Lionsgate film had a budget similar to that of ‘Black Phone 2’ (about $30 million), but aims to close on Sunday at most with $6.1 million raised. This comedy features Keanu Reeves as an angel and Seth Rogen as a down-on-his-luck millionaire in its cast, but, despite its good reviews, no one seems to be interested.

The top 5 is closed by ‘One Battle After Another’ and ‘Roofman: A Thief on the Roof’. Paul Thomas Anderson’s film will raise $3.7 million in 3 daysraising the total in four weeks in theaters to 61.6 million. Luckily in the rest of the world it is working well and the global total is already above 150 million dollars, although it is not likely that it will end up being profitable for Warner Bros. in any way. ‘Roofman’, in its second week, adds another 3.65 million to a total of 15.4 million. It stars Channing Tatum.

No big changes expected

The total raised for the weekend of October 17-19 will be about $67.6 million, down 2% from the mid-October weekend last year. Next week the billboard is renewed with titles that are not too powerful or seasonal: the biographical drama ‘Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere’ starring Jeremy Allen White, the slasher ‘The Watchers’ by Aidan Campbell and the romantic drama ‘Despite You’ with Allison Williams, Mckenna Grace and Dave Franco.