I told you to see Evil Dead Burn. The box office says most people did not. Here is the real story.

The actual numbers

Evil Dead Burn opened domestically to $13.7 million and $40.7 million worldwide, including about $27 million from international. That is 44 percent below Evil Dead Rise's $24 million domestic opening in 2023, and Rise went on to finish at $147 million worldwide. This one is starting from a noticeably smaller base. (SuperHeroHype)

Here is the part that actually surprised me

This was not a movie people hated once they got there. It sits at 71 percent with critics and 81 percent with audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, a solid gap in the direction that usually means word of mouth should have carried it. It did not get the chance to. A modest $20 million budget means the film could still turn profitable if it holds steady over the next few weeks, but the opening itself just was not the number the franchise's history pointed to. (SuperHeroHype)

So what actually happened

My honest read, as someone who was genuinely excited for this one, is that it ran into a crowded weekend rather than a bad movie. It opened the same frame as Disney's live-action Moana, which pulled a chunk of the general audience that a horror sequel was never going to get anyway, and against A24's starrier wildcard. A sixth entry in a rebooted franchise, with a less familiar cast than the last one, is also just a harder sell than a first reboot was. None of that means the movie is bad. It means horror still has to fight for a weekend like anything else, even in a year that has been genuinely great for the genre.

I picked this one last week and I am not walking it back. The audience score backs that up. But recommending something and predicting its box office are two different jobs, and I got the second one wrong. Worth saying plainly instead of pretending I called it.

For the original weekend guide, see what was actually worth seeing this weekend, and for the bigger 2026 horror picture, see why horror keeps winning the weekend. You can find everything this studio builds at jcmobileappstudio.com.