Horror at the Box Office: Four Horror Movies in the Top Ten
Four genre flicks finished in the top seven last weekend, as more horror is getting ready to roll into theaters in October. There’s lots going on with horror movies right now!
The top grossing was The Conjuring: Last Rites, which earned almost $7 million, a reasonable 44% decline from last week. That put it in third place overall.
Last Rites is a smash hit and yet another massive winner for Warner Bros, which is having a magnificent year. The film has now grossed more than $160 million domestically and $435 million worldwide.
Last Rites seemed doomed to fizzle out quickly after dropping nearly 70% in its second weekend. Instead, it’s shown astonishing staying power. This is very unusual, and honestly I’m not sure how to explain it. It might be the tepid commercial performances of its horror competitors plus the strong brand value of the Conjuring franchise.
I’ve mentioned this before, but there’s no way that Warner Bros is going to let this be the last movie in the series. They’re not going to leave truckloads of money on the table.
Last Rites was followed by The Strangers: Chapter 2 which earned a lukewarm $5.9 million in its opening weekend, good enough for fourth place. This is a disappointing start compared to The Strangers: Chapter 1, which made $12 million in its first weekend. However, Chapter 2 only cost $8.5 million to produce, so its chances of making a profit are good.
Further down the rankings, Him grossed $3.7 million, a colossal drop of 72% from its opening weekend. The $27 million budgeted football horror film has grossed a total of nearly $21 million domestically and practically nothing outside North America, where American football has a minimal following.
This is a disappointing performance, especially when marketing costs (which aren’t factored into the budget) are taken into account. Maybe this is why sports horror movies rarely get made. They’re just not popular.
Finally, The Long Walk performed decently in its third weekend, dropping 44% and grossing $3.4 million for a seventh place finish. The Stephen King adaption has earned a total domestic gross of almost $29 million and around $36 million worldwide compared to a budget of $20 million.
Positive word of mouth seems to be boosting this movie, which is showing glimmers of life after a disappointing start. My prediction is that The Long Walk will perform well on streaming services.
Weapons finally fell outside the top ten, making less than a half million in its eighth weekend. It managed to achieve the $150 million milestone domestically. Few theaters are still showing this movie, and I imagine it will be virtually nowhere to be found next weekend, when several more horror pictures premiere. It’s had a great run.
That’s five genre films in theaters at the same time (six if you count The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which is in a limited anniversary re-release). And there’s plenty more to come next weekend.
Up Next
Bone Lake, Coyotes, and Good Boy all hit theaters on October 3rd, the first Friday of October. Bone Lake is receiving the widest release, but Good Boy has received plenty of buzz online.
VHS Halloween also premieres on Shudder, which may take away from the potential audience for the theatrical films. With so many new horror movies releasing at the same time, it’ll be interesting to see who performs the best.
Credit to Box Office Mojo for the figures cited.
