$2.5 million in previews – Miscellaneous

Warner Bros.

Nothing can slow the dead. “Evil Dead Rise,” the latest movie in the Sam Raimi-produced horror series, took in $2.5 million in Thursday previews at the domestic box office.

It’s a strong start for a horror movie in April, but it won’t be enough to stop the meteoric mushroom-powered rise of the Super Mario Bros. movie. , which is expected to earn another massive batch of between $45 million and $50 million in its third weekend. Universal and Illumination’s successful Nintendo adaptation has already grossed $724 million worldwide, and will soon pass “Minions: The Rise of Gru” as the highest-grossing animated film of the post-pandemic era.

The horror film “Evil Dead Rise” is expected to gross between $15 million and $20 million in its opening weekend, with some projections as high as $25 million. It is the fifth film in the Warner Bros. franchise. and New Line’s “Evil Dead,” which began in 1981 with Raimi’s original low-budget horror hit starring Bruce Campbell as zombie-slayer Ash Williams. The previous entry, titled “Evil Dead,” made $97.5 million from a budget of $17 million in 2013.

Evil Dead Rise stars Lily Sullivan and Alyssa Sutherland as two estranged sisters trying to protect their family from a new wave of demonic creatures spawned from the Book of the Dead. The cast also includes Morgan Davies, Gabrielle Echols and Neil Fisher in her film debut.

It’s time for horror, as Ari Aster’s paranoid thriller “Beau Is Afraid,” starring Joaquin Phoenix, expands its theatrical release this weekend. With polarizing reviews and a running time of nearly three hours, the latest film from the Hereditary and Midsummer director aims to open to the single-digit million.

Guy Ritchie’s action film Covenant about the Afghanistan war, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, also opens this weekend, with estimates hovering around $6 million at the box office.