The Number 1 Earner at the Box Office Is A Horror Movie — Here’s Why That’s Bad
Josh Korngut
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Something kinda rare happened this past weekend. The number one spot at the domestic box office was awarded to an original horror film. Not a sequel, reboot, remake or requel, but an (almost) totally original spooky title. Director Jessica M. Thomson’s The Invitation defeated Bullet Train, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, Top Gun: Maverick, and Three Thousand Years of Longing to land its spot at the top of the heap. But this win for our genre came with an asterisk. The Invitation only earned $7 million this past weekend, a historically low take-home for the fourth weekend in August.
The Invitation, a Dracula-inspired romantic horror-thriller, was set up by Sony’s Screen Gems on a little over 3000 USA screens over the weekend. While its $7 million recoupment isn’t worth shaking a stick at, it’s certainly not an ideal takeaway for the summertime top earner. For context, according to Rotten Tomatoes, this is the first time an August top spot took home less than $10 million since The Crow: City of Angels back in 1996.
But lots has changed since the Spice Girls ruled the world, and a $7 million head start without the benefit of word of mouth might actually be quite the accomplishment. The Invitation was not screened for critics ahead of its release. Another sign of success comes in the form of Radio Silence’s recent classic Ready or Not. The title, thematically and aesthetically familiar to The Invitation, also earned close to $8 million during the fourth weekend of August. I also want to mention that these films share similarly sized budgets, with Ready or Not eventually doing quite well for itself.
While I’m always proud to see a horror movie top the charts, it gives me anxiety to see the industry performing so poorly. In a brighter alternate universe, this weekend would’ve seen a third-week streak for mainstream action fare Bullet Train. Although, maybe things need to burn down so we can rebuild them better.
Lastly, have you seen The Invitation yet? What did you think? Let me know on Twitter via @joshkorngut. I’m always around to chat about all things horror box office!
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