‘Buddy’ Busts Out, Scares Up No. 6 Spot, Sets Record For Roadside Attractions, Saban – Specialty Box Office — SkimNews
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- Buddy scared up $5.36 million on 1,258 screens, landing at no. 6 domestically and far exceeding its projected $2.5 million opening
- Roadside Attractions scored its best post-Covid opening and second-highest ever, behind only I Can Only Imagine (2018), with the R-rated parody’s breakout performance
- Saban Films achieved its highest opening in 12 years, marking a milestone for the label with its first major horror acquisition
- Keegan-Michael Key, voicing the film’s giant orange unicorn host Buddy, anchors a surreal ’90s-style kids’ show turned horror-comedy that premiered at Sundance without initial buyers
- Roadside and Saban launched an unprecedented online campaign featuring a text-responsive Buddy persona, amassing over 450k social followers and 25k Fan Club members via SMS
- Young and Hispanic audiences drove turnout, with 83% of viewers under 35 and 37% identifying as Hispanic, over-indexing significantly for the genre
Why it matters: Buddy’s $5.36 million debut—more than double its projection—proves niche horror-comedies with targeted digital campaigns can outperform conventional releases, giving Roadside and Saban a high-margin win and reshaping how mid-budget genre films are marketed to young, diverse audiences.
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