Scream 7 slashes competition with $28.8M opening day

After beating out last week’s winner, “Wuthering Heights,” “Scream 7” easily took the top spot at the box office on Friday.

It took $28.8 million from 3,540 theaters in North America on Friday to show the seventh movie in the long-running killer series. Paramount and Spyglass are looking for $60 million in the first weekend, which would be the best start for the series ever.

In “Scream 7,” Sidney Prescott, played by Neve Campbell, comes back. She moves to the small town of Pine Grove with her daughter to live a quiet life, but Ghostface tries to set everything on fire. Campbell shares the screen with Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Matthew Lillard, and other actors from the original group, as well as Isabel May, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Anna Camp, Joel McHale, and Jamie Grace.

It wasn’t straightforward getting “Scream 7” off the ground, but Paramount is about to make a lot of money. During preproduction, there were many major failures, such as stars Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega leaving the project and a major change in the creative team, with original “Scream” writer Kevin Williamson taking over as director from Christopher Landon. Plus, Paramount and Spyglass had to pay $7 million to get Campbell back after she quit “Scream 6” over a pay disagreement.

Sony’s “GOAT” came in at No. 2 in the U.S. on Friday with $2.6 million. By Sunday, the animated family movie about professional animal sports should have made $11.7 million. After three weekends, “GOAT” should have made a total of $73 million in North America.

Another movie by Emerald Fennell, called “Wuthering Heights,” came in third. It made about $2.2 million on its third Friday in North American screens. The steamy book translation should make $7 million by Sunday, bringing the total to $72 million in the United States.

Different sources say that “Twenty One Pilots: More Than We Ever Imagined” came in fourth place with $2.1 million from just 770 screens in North America on Friday. The concert film from the band’s show in Mexico City in front of 65,000 people should have made $3.5 million by Sunday.

“Crime 101,” earning only $920,107 in the U.S. on Friday, ranked a distant fifth. Amazon MGM wants to make $3.34 million by Sunday, which would bring the movie’s total in the U.S. to $29.9 million.