Scary Movie 6 has an abysmal Rotten Tomatoes score. It won’t matter.
Scary Movie 6 opens Friday with a Rotten Tomatoes score hovering between 20 and 27 percent as reviews come in. Critics are calling it dated, toothless, and stuck in the 2000s. None of that matters.
Scary Movie 6 opens Friday, June 5, 2026, with a Rotten Tomatoes score hovering between 20 and 27 percent depending on which live counter you check. Critics are using words like “toothless,” “thoughtless,” “stuck in the 2000s,” and the franchise should have been “left for dead.“
It doesn’t matter.
The film is tracking to open between $45 and $50 million-plus domestically, according to Variety, Box Office Theory, and Deadline. Worldwide tracking points toward a $70 million-plus opening weekend. The film is the clear front-runner for the #1 spot at the weekend box office, comfortably ahead of A24’s Backrooms (in its second weekend) and Amazon MGM’s $200 million Masters of the Universe gamble.
A 20 percent Rotten Tomatoes score is not a warning sign for Scary Movie 6. It is the franchise’s normal operating altitude.
The franchise has never cared what critics think
Across the entire Scary Movie franchise, the critical consensus has been remarkably consistent. The critics did not like the first one in 2000. They liked the second one even less. They warmed up slightly to the third and fourth installments. They savaged the fifth.
The audience, across all of it, kept buying tickets.
The historical record:
Scary Movie (2000): 52% Rotten Tomatoes, grossed $278 million worldwide on a $19 million budget
Scary Movie 2 (2001): 13% Rotten Tomatoes, grossed $141 million worldwide
Scary Movie 3 (2003): 36% Rotten Tomatoes, grossed $221 million worldwide
Scary Movie 4 (2006): 34% Rotten Tomatoes, grossed $178 million worldwide
Scary Movie 5 (2013): 4% Rotten Tomatoes, grossed $78 million worldwide
The full franchise has earned roughly $900 million worldwide across five films, almost none of which received above a 50 percent critic score, and most of which received below a 40 percent score. Scary Movie 5 had a 4 percent Rotten Tomatoes score, which is essentially the lowest possible critical reception in the modern era, and it still grossed more than four times its production budget worldwide.
The audience for Scary Movie has never been the audience that reads reviews before going to the theater.
What critics actually say
The reviews dropping this week are about what you would expect from professional film critics evaluating a Wayans parody movie 26 years after the original.
The Hollywood Reporter‘s David Rooney wrote: “Sure, it’s fun to see the familiar faces, but this belated sixth installment makes the perplexing choice to go back to the same overload of winking self-awareness that put the first nails in the franchise’s coffin. Fourth walls are shattered, hoary tropes are dismantled, the body count climbs and a joke gets thrown in about the endless supply of Wayanses ready to keep the franchise going.“
Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman expressed disappointment that the film does not engage more deeply with the past decade of horror cinema, given how the genre has expanded since 2013.
IndieWire wrote: “Refusing to engage with any actual controversy at Paramount (outside of one very weak line involving Neve Campbell), Scary Movie 6 manages to come across as thoughtless and toothless at the same time.“
SlashFilm was the harshest: “Scary Movie thinks offensive queer jokes and topical references stand in for a perspective. Instead, it’s a bunch of kids wiping boogers on each other and giggling. That might make you laugh when you’re five, I suppose.“
The general consensus across the negative reviews is that the film does not feel timely, that its parody targets feel selected from 5 to 10 years ago, and that the humor is reliant on the kind of broad, vulgar gags the Wayans brothers built their early-career reputation on.
The general consensus across the positive elements is that the surprise celebrity cameos work, that the chemistry between Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, Anna Faris, and Regina Hall remains genuinely funny, and that fans of the original films will probably enjoy themselves.
In short, it is a Scary Movie.
Why parody comedy is critic-proof
The disconnect between critics and Scary Movie audiences is not new and it is not a Scary Movie-specific phenomenon. It is a structural feature of how professional film criticism approaches parody as a genre.
Critics tend to evaluate films against the artistic, technical, and thematic standards of their era. Parody comedy operates on a fundamentally different value system. A successful parody is judged by how funny it is to the specific audience that loves the genre being parodied. A successful Scary Movie joke is one that lands for someone who has actually seen the films being lampooned and finds the deflation funny. A Scary Movie joke can be dumb, vulgar, and obvious and still work if the audience laughs.
Critics rarely laugh at this kind of humor. They have spent careers training themselves to evaluate films seriously. Watching a Wayans brothers parody and trying to assess it with the same toolkit you would use to evaluate Anatomy of a Fall is a misuse of the toolkit. The film is not trying to do the same thing.
This is why Anchorman has a 66% Rotten Tomatoes score and is widely considered one of the great American comedies of the 2000s. It’s why Borat got 91% and is genuinely critic-friendly, while Borat Subsequent Moviefilm only got 84% despite being arguably just as funny. It’s why Talladega Nights sits at 71% even though most comedians would rank it higher than the percentage suggests. Critics and comedy audiences live in different evaluative ecosystems.
For Scary Movie specifically, the franchise has never tried to be highbrow. It has always operated as broad, vulgar, and accessible. That is the audience contract. The Rotten Tomatoes score is not measuring what fans care about.
What the audience actually wants
The audience that has been waiting 13 years for Scary Movie 6 is showing up for very specific things.
The Wayans brothers reunion. Marlon and Shawn Wayans left the franchise after the second film in 2001. The third through fifth films continued without them. The new film is the first time all four original principal cast members (the Wayans brothers, Anna Faris, and Regina Hall) have been together since 2001. That is the headline draw.
Nostalgia for the 2000s parody era. The 2000s were a peak era for parody comedy, with the Scary Movie franchise, Date Movie, Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, Vampires Suck, and dozens of similar titles. The genre largely died in the 2010s as the comedy economy shifted toward streaming and Adam Sandler-style production. A new Scary Movie is the closest thing to a 2000s revival of the genre most audiences are going to get.
The Wayans family. The Wayans brothers have one of the most distinct comedic voices in modern American film, and their fanbase has been remarkably loyal across decades. Even when the Wayans family is the only good thing in a film, that is enough for a meaningful audience to show up.
Lower expectations. Audiences going to Scary Movie 6 are not expecting a masterpiece. They are expecting to laugh at vulgar jokes for 90 minutes with their friends. That is a much easier promise to deliver on than what critics are evaluating the film against.
What the weekend will look like
By Sunday night, Scary Movie 6 will probably open somewhere in the $45 to $50 million range domestically. The international numbers will add roughly $25 to $30 million for a worldwide opening of $70 to $80 million.
That would make Scary Movie 6 the biggest opening in the franchise’s history outside of the original 2000 film. Even with a sub-30% Rotten Tomatoes score.
The film cost roughly $45 million to produce. With the projected opening weekend numbers alone, it will already be near profitability before counting marketing costs. Streaming and home video revenue over the following 18 months will push the franchise total well past the $100 million-plus profitable threshold.
For Paramount, Scary Movie 6 is going to be one of the cleanest financial wins of 2026. The marketing has been targeted. The cast has done the press tour. The trailers landed. The 26-year-after-the-original timing was perfectly calibrated for the kind of nostalgia-driven audience that streaming services have been training to love this category of content.
For audiences who have been waiting 13 years for the franchise’s return, the only review that matters is the one their own laughter will generate in the theater this weekend.
For critics, Scary Movie 6 will sit at 20-something percent on Rotten Tomatoes forever, alongside its franchise siblings, all of which made money, all of which entertained their fans, and all of which the critics never quite understood the appeal of.
The receipts come Sunday. The audience is already buying tickets. The critics are filing reviews into the void.
A Wayans always rises.
Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, visit clownfishtv.com. Watch the show on YouTube at @ClownfishTV where new episodes drop daily. Subscribe to the Clownfish TV podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and wherever else you get your podcasts. Sign up for the free newsletter at more.clownfishtv.com.
Hat Tips:
Screen Rant (June 4, 2026), verified Scary Movie 6 Rotten Tomatoes score reporting and critic excerpt aggregation
World of Reel / Jordan Ruimy (June 4, 2026), verified 25% Rotten Tomatoes score and “stuck in the 2000s” critic consensus framing
ComicBasics (June 4, 2026), verified 22% Tomatometer score and franchise context
CBR (June 4, 2026), verified 27% Rotten Tomatoes score and verified historical franchise scores including Scary Movie (52%), Scary Movie 2 (13%), Scary Movie 3 (36%), Scary Movie 4 (34%), and Scary Movie 5 (4%)
GamesRadar (June 4, 2026), verified 20% Rotten Tomatoes opening score and the celebrity cameos critical recognition
The Hollywood Reporter / David Rooney (June 2026), verified review excerpts including the “Wayanses ready to keep the franchise going” quote and the Dave Sheridan Doofy character context
Variety / Owen Gleiberman (June 2026), verified review excerpts and the horror-genre engagement critique
IndieWire (June 2026), verified “thoughtless and toothless” critical excerpt
SlashFilm (June 2026), verified review excerpt
Box Office Mojo and The Numbers, archival worldwide box office data for Scary Movie (2000), Scary Movie 2 (2001), Scary Movie 3 (2003), Scary Movie 4 (2006), and Scary Movie 5 (2013)
Variety (June 3, 2026), verified $45 million-plus opening weekend tracking for Scary Movie 6
Deadline (June 3, 2026), verified $70 million worldwide opening projection and 53 offshore markets release
Box Office Theory (June 3, 2026), verified $45-50 million domestic opening forecast
Comingsoon / AOL (May 29, 2026), verified pre-release Rotten Tomatoes prediction context including the Kalshi betting market reference
Comic Book Movie (June 4, 2026), additional verified review aggregation including the IndieWire and SlashFilm excerpts
Is anybody really surprised though?