• by Wayne Friedman , July 9, 2023

Benefitting from strong brand awareness from the franchise's previous editions, as well as strong word-of-mouth marketing, enabled Sony Pictures to open "Insidious: The Red Door" first weekend with a $32.7 million U.S./Canada box office (Comscore) on a modest $4.5 million in national TV spending (EDO En Ad Engage).

It was the second best opening of the franchise after 2013's “Insidious: Chapter 2” ($40.3 million), and higher than 2018’s “Insidious: The Last Key” ($29.6 million). There have now been five “Insidious” editions.

The movie topped the second week of Walt Disney’s “Indiana Jones: The Dial of Destiny,” which added $26.5 million, bringing its Box Office-to-date to $121.2 million.

By way of comparison, the new "Indiana Jones" film spent an estimated $23.8 million on national TV ads generating 3.2 billion TV impressions vs. the 705.4 million impressions generated by the new "Insidious" film's TV ad campaign.

Average national TV ad spending for an entire theatrical film campaign can run between $12 million and $20 million -- this doesn’t include co-branding consumer product marketing deals, according to industry executives. Total average film marketing and media costs for a wide release theatrical movie can run around $35 million.

After “Insidious” and “Indiana Jones”, for the most recent weekend, there was Angel Studios’ “Sound of Freedom,” which pulled in $18.2 million in box office revenue. It now totals $40.2 million domestically, says Comscore.

“Sound of Freedom” is about a federal agent who -- after rescuing a young boy from ruthless child traffickers -- goes back to do the same for his sister.

Big upcoming movies with already major TV campaigns underway include:

• Paramount Pictures’ “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part One”, opening July 12 -- now at $13.2 million in estimated TV ad spend, per EDO (2,790 airings, 1.5 billion impressions).

• Universal Pictures’ “Oppenheimer” $16.1 million, a July 21 debut (1,040 airings, 1.2 billion impressions).

• Paramount’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”, a August 2 start ($5.6 million, 3,490 airings, 1.2 billion impressions.)

• Warner Bros’s “Barbie” (July 21) is at $6.1 million  (1,810 airings, 763.4 million impressions).