Send Help is winning its screaming match with Iron Lung.
The two new horror movies, which have been neck-and-neck for No. 1 this weekend, both debuted in theaters on January 30. Sam Raimi’s Send Help marks the Evil Dead director’s first R-rated horror movie since 2000’s The Gift, while the video game adaptation Iron Lung is the feature directorial debut of writer-star Mark Fischbach, the YouTuber better known as Markiplier.
Per Deadline, as of Saturday morning, Send Help is projected to earn a 3-day opening weekend gross between $17.5 and $18.1 million at the domestic box office. This sees it pulling slightly ahead of Iron Lung, which is only projected to earn $17.1 million in its 3-day debut. While it is still too soon to tell which movie will hit No. 1, the honor will likely go to the Sam Raimi movie.
If these projections hold true, Send Help will be the third Sam Raimi movie in a row to debut at No. 1, after 2015’s Oz the Great and Powerful and 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. However, hitting No. 1 does not guarantee that the movie will turn a profit. Send Help’s reported $40 million budget could place its estimated break-even point as high as $100 million.
While some recent horror titles with similar debuts grossed more than $100 million, including Saw X ($18.3 million debut, $125.3 million worldwide) and Longlegs ($22.4 million debut, $125.4 million worldwide), the Raimi movie will need to have strong audience retention. This could very well be the case, however, considering the fact that glowing Send Help reviews have earned it a Certified Fresh Rotten Tomatoes score of 94%.
Even though Iron Lung is falling behind the new movie from the auteur behind the iconic Evil Dead movies, its performance is outstanding when taken on its own terms. The movie, which was self-financed by Fischbach, reportedly cost less than $3 million to make. Even without a major Hollywood studio backing it, it has become one of the biggest wide releases of the month.
Additionally, it is most likely already in the black. Movies often need to earn back two and a half times their budgets in order to break even in theaters, which means that it probably only needed to hit a benchmark of about $7.5 million. Given the fact that it is set to more than double that total in the span of just three days, it can already be considered a major success.
Overall, with Send Help and Iron Lung taking the Top 2 spots on the domestic chart for the weekend, the horror releases of January 2026 have seen a major resurgence after 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple failed to make good on the expectation that it would take No. 1 from Avatar: Fire and Ash and Return to Silent Hill quietly debuted at No. 7 with just $3.2 million.
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Release Date
January 30, 2026
Runtime
127 Minutes
Director
Mark Fischbach
Cast
Mark Fischbach
Speaker #2 (Voice)