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“Scream” is arguably the most famous horror movie to come out of the 1990s, but you wouldn’t have guessed that from its opening weekend performance. As UPI<\/a> reported\u00a0on December 23, 1996, “Scream” was originally out-shadowed by three other recent releases:<\/p>\n “‘Beavis and Butt-head Do America,’ the cartoon featuring a pair of wise-cracking and crass MTV adolescents, took in more than $20 million over the weekend. […] The second weekend of ‘Jerry Maguire,’ starring Tom Cruise as a sports agent, came in a distant second with $13.1 million at 2,531 theaters. […] Disney’s live-action ‘101 Dalmatians’ remained in third place for the second week in a row, taking in $6.9 million at 2,901 theaters. […] The opening weekend of Miramax’s thriller ‘Scream’ took fourth place with $6.3 million at 1,413 theaters.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n Only $6.3 million for its opening weekend? If “Scream VI” had opened like that, it would’ve been declared a total disaster and plans for “Scream 7”<\/a> would’ve been scrapped right then and there.<\/p>\n The reason that number seems so low is because the opening weekend is usually a movie’s best. You can typically expect a film’s earnings to drop by more than half in its second weekend and to only continue dropping from there. If “Scream” had continued on that trajectory, it wouldn’t have broken even against its $14 million budget.<\/p>\n Thankfully, those who saw it on opening weekend\u00a0wouldn’t stop raving about it, which caught the attention of other moviegoers. “Scream” ended up being one of the rare movies where its second weekend outdid its first by bringing in $9 million, with its\u00a0third weekend performing even better. Its earnings declined after that point, but not as much as you’d expect; it was still raking in over $1 million a week as late as 1997’s Memorial Day weekend.<\/p>\n\n