Box Office – Did Moviegoers Follow It Follows This Weekend?
Foywonder
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A fifth place opening normally wouldn’t be considered all that impressive for a horror film, but in the case of the little horror movie that could, It Follows, that’s practically a revelation.
Though the top of the weekend box office may have belonged to an animated alien and a prison comedy, RADiUS-TWC and Dimension Films are the ones truly doing a victory lap today. The critically acclaimed teen horror flick It Follows, a movie originally destined for a handful of theaters and a VOD release until the distributors decided to roll the dice and expand it from 32 to 1,200 theaters this weekend, landed in fifth place with about $4 million.
According to Box Office Mojo, they’re so ecstatic they’re planning to expand it to even more theaters next weekend.
What makes the success of It Follows all the more astounding is how its success is due almost entirely to word-of-mouth. Print and advertising has been nominal, though I expect that will change in the coming week.
All the more surprising given this horror flick displays far more Sundance sensibilities than the typical jump scare heavy ghost/possession films we’ve been inundated with at the box office of late.
Whether moviegoers will continue to follow It Follows remains to be seen. One thing is for certain: We’re going to be seeing a whole lot more of burgeoning scream queen Maika Monroe in the near future.
Horror returns to the box office in late April with another film festival darling getting a wide release: Unfriended, which hopes to do for social media what Paranormal Activity did for found footage. At this point I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing.
Categorized:News
