Disney’s body-swapping comedy Freakier Friday and New Line’s acclaimed mystery-comedy Weapons are off to the races at the late-summer box office.

The two August pics are expected to end up in a close race for No. 1 domestically and topple Marvel Studio’ struggling holdover The Fantastic Four: The First Steps from the top spot. Marvel and parent company Disney are still hopeful that Fantastic Four will rebound, but there are no assurances.

Horror could use a win after such box office bombs as Blumhouse and Atomic Monsters’ M3GAN 2.0, which opened to only $10 million in June on its way to topping at $40 million worldwide, compared to $180 million for the first film.

Zach Cregger’s Weapons — which currently boasts a 96 percent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes — grossed a hefty $5.7 million in previews. It had been tracking for a domestic debut in the $25 million to $30 million range, but could come in higher. The R-rated title was the subject of a heated bidding war when it hit the market, with New Line and parent company Warners plunking down $38 million for the package, which including a $10 million payday for Cregger, who made waves with his debut feature film, 2022’s Barbarian, which he both wrote and directed.

New Line is also home of Final Destination: Bloodlines, which earned $5.5 million in previews earlier this summer on its way to a domestic debut of $51.5 million (there’s a lot more male-skewing product in the marketplace presently).

Weapons, an original story, stars Julia Garner as a teacher who learns that 17 of the 18 children in her classroom simultaneously got out of bed and ran off into the night the exact same time, 2:17 a.m. Josh Brolin plays a grieving father who is intent on finding his missing child, and is suspicious that the young teacher had something to do with it.

Aden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams and Amy Madigan also star in Weapons, which will be playing on coveted Imax Screens (Imax is also rereleasing summer hit 51: The Movie on select screens this weekend before offering more showings the following week.)

Freakier Friday will play in hundreds of other premium large format screens, including Dolby Cinema auditoriums.

The family comedy — reuniting Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis 23 years after Freaky Friday opened — earned $3.1 million previews, including special sneaks on Wednesday. That’s on par or ahead of Elvis ($3.5 million), the most recent Mean Girls ($3.3 million) and The Lost City ($2.5 million), all of which opened in the $28 million to $31 million range domestically. That lines up with what prerelease tracking shows for Freakier Friday.

Already boasting a 94 percent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, It’s the first event pic in weeks to target females, and should also benefit from the nostalgia factor. A fun tidbit: after all this time, the 2003 film has popped up on the top 10 list of most watched films on Disney+ in the last week or so.

Directed by Nisha Ganatra, the modestly budgeted $42 million movie picks up after the events of the first film, when Lohan’s character, Tess, swapped bodies with her mother, played by Curtis. This time out, in a multigenerational twist, they find themselves swapping places, respectively, with the daughter and soon-to-be stepdaughter of Tess. Julia Butters, Sophia Hammons, Manny Jacinto, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Rosalind Chao, Chad Michael Murray, Vanessa Bayer, and Mark Harmon also star.

The Freaky Friday franchise, which also includes a 1976 film, is based on the book by Mary Rodgers. Disney has enjoyed great success in tapping into nostalgia and luring young adults in their 20s and 30s who grew up on previous installments in its library. For example, it’s live-action tentpole Lilo & Stitch, based on the 2002 animated film, is the only Hollywood pic of 2025 so far to clear the $1 billion milestone after attracting both families and non-parents.

Film studios execs across Hollywood lament how comedies have become an endangered species in the streaming age. Last weekend, Paramount’s Naked Gun reboot bucked this trend in opening to nearly $17 million domestically. While that film is considered more of a straight-up comedy, versus a family comedy such as Freakier Friday, it will be good news for all if they both work.