Evil Dead Rise Thursday preview screenings signal a strong start for the next chapter of the iconic horror franchise.
Sometimes, dead is better, especially at the box office. The latest chapter of the Evil Dead franchise, Evil Dead Rise, rose to $2.5M in Thursday preview screenings at the domestic box office. While it’s a groovy start for a horror film, it’s important to remember the weekend is just beginning, and theatergoers love a good scare. Friday crowds will likely fill seats for the Lee Cronin-directed horror film, with young adults and mature audiences making up most of the ticket sales.
As promising as Evil Dead Rise looks, The Super Mario Bros. Movie could level up again at the box office with $45 million to $50 million in its third weekend. The Super-Mushroom-powered animated film has already made $724 million worldwide and is well on its way to making $1 billion in gold coins. In addition to making money at the box office, Illumination’s Super Mario movie has a knock-on effect regarding video game sales. Several Super Mario Bros catalog titles are climbing the sales charts, padding Nintendo‘s pockets and bringing the fun of Mario to families and fans worldwide.
Evil Dead Rise could make between $15 million and $20 million in its opening weekend, with some analysts saying it could crawl its way to $25 million. It’s wild to imagine the Evil Dead franchise began as a low-budget horror experiment from the twisted imagination of Sam Raimi.
Lee Cronin directs and writes Evil Dead Rise, with Mirabai Pease, Richard Crouchley, Anna-Maree Thomas, Lily Sullivan, Noah Paul, Alyssa Sutherland, and more starring.
During an interview with AV Club, Evil Dead alum Bruce Campbell revealed they’re hoping to boost the franchise in a significant way by making a new sequel every two or three years.
Campbell said, “It’s all about the books now. It has nothing to do with (franchise hero Ash) or any particular character. In Army of Darkness, we first saw three books. So we know there are three out there, and none of them are any good. It’s about: where does that darn book wind up, who gets it, and what happens? But the universe is the same. It’s about innocent people with no special skills having to fight for their very lives. … I think the stories will progress a little more now. We’re going to try and do them more like every two or three years rather than every 10 years. It’s also the first time Sam is working with his brother Ivan to create an overall Bible that will give future writers and directors an idea of where this thing should go next to potentially tie in some of these stories. So I think it’s going to get a little more tied in as the years go by. But because it’s all about the books. It could be a book in the past, a book in the future. It’s yet to be determined.”
Do you plan to see Evil Dead Rise this weekend? Let us know in the comments.
Originally published at https://www.joblo.com/evil-dead-rise-thursday-previews/
