From bizarre tonal mashups to unfortunate real-world connections,
it's terrifying just how many ways horror movies can flop at the box office.
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Just before Hostel: Part II arrived in theaters in June 2007, a workprint copy of the feature leaked
onto the internet. When the movie proceeded to take in just $33.6 million worldwide,
a whopping 60 percent drop from the original Hostel, writer-director Eli Roth blamed the
piracy. But while that certainly didn't help, it wasn't the only problem.
For one thing, while the first Hostel was a hit, it wasn't exactly the sort of beloved
horror movie that makes fans demand a sequel. It was an early January release that got a
box office boost from being the only gruesome title in a marketplace otherwise dominated by
award season fare and family movies. Meanwhile, Part II dropped in the middle of the summer,
so it faced much more serious competition. On top of all that, the marketing failed to offer
any new elements to intrigue moviegoers, as the trailers and posters just teased more grisly
carnage. Simply put, you need more than that to excel in the blockbuster days of summer.
Nobody involved in 1999's The Haunting could've imagined the other horror movie that would end up
upstaging it. How could anything overshadow an $80 million horror movie starring Liam Neeson fresh
off Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace? But The Haunting opened in close proximity to The
Blair Witch Project, which vastly surpassed the box office intake of the costly remake.
Grossing just $180.1 million worldwide, The Haunting was expected to earn much more than that,
with all of its big-name actors and a familiar brand name. Unforeseen bad timing wasn't the
only issue here. The movie also stood out like a sore thumb in the late 90s horror landscape,
which was enjoying fresh takes on the genre in the likes of Scream. In hindsight,
The Haunting actually anticipated the mid-2000s obsession with horror remakes
like 2003's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and 2004's Dawn of the Dead. But at the time,
it was just a ho-hum box office disappointment that didn't make the impact it was supposed to.
"Why won't he let us leave?!" "What do we do? I don't know."
On the surface, 2019's Doctor Sleep seemed to have everything going for it. It was a sequel
to the iconic horror film The Shining, it had a big-name actor in the form of Ewan McGregor
in the lead role, and it was opening over the Veteran's Day holiday weekend. Surely
a marketplace that seems to always respond to nostalgia-driven horror sequels would turn out
in droves for Doctor Sleep. Instead, it became a surprise box office nonstarter
when it grossed just $71.8 million worldwide on a $45 million budget.
Part of the problem here was that without The Shining in the title,
Doctor Sleep had an uphill battle convincing people that it was actually a sequel to that
classic. The marketing ended up getting caught between a rock and a hard place.
Too many ads relied solely on callbacks to the original, which made it look derivative,
while it was also never fully apparent to viewers that this continued the story of The Shining.
It didn't help that this was an artsier kind of horror movie, with a slower pace and scares
derived from an eerie atmosphere rather than just jump scares. This all but ensured that Doctor
Sleep was well-received enough critically while audiences on the fence stayed away.
With 2012's Paranormal Activity 4, the found footage franchise saw its box office clout
abruptly shrink dramatically. A series that had cleared $100 million domestically with
ease one year prior with Paranormal Activity 3 now barely collected $50 million in North America. The
ultra-cheap price tags on these movies ensured that this was still a profitable venture,
but it was also clear that the sheen was wearing off. So it's no surprise that the
temporarily "final" installment, 2015's The Ghost Dimension, delivered even deeper box office lows.
The Ghost Dimension grossed just $18.3 million in North America, not only the lowest domestic haul
of any entry in the series but also smaller than the opening weekend sums of all prior
installments. That abnormally minuscule take can be attributed to Paramount Pictures engaging in a
quicker-than-usual home video release strategy that alienated enough theater chains to ensure
that The Ghost Dimension would play on a much smaller number of screens than usual.
Overseas grosses would lift the movie to a $77.9 million worldwide total,
enough to ensure that Paramount didn't lose money. But this global gross was
a far cry from what the earlier entries had brought in just a few years earlier
and made Paranormal Activity 4 look like a barnburner by comparison.
"You know why I screamed?"
"Why?"
"It's 'cause I saw this through the camera."
The Blair Witch Project was such a gargantuan box office success in 1999 that it seemed like
a foregone conclusion that it would spawn several lucrative sequels. Alas, attempts to turn it into
a franchise have repeatedly hit a brick wall. This was even true for 2016's Blair Witch,
which attempted to mine potential nostalgia for the original movie into a relaunched franchise.
Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out that way. Box office prognosticators predicted
that Blair Witch would make more than $20 million in its domestic opening weekend,
but instead, that total ended up being the entirety of its North American run.
A big problem was the state of the found-footage genre circa 2016. It
was a novel gimmick in 1999 when The Blair Witch Project was unleashed on the masses,
but audiences were outright rejecting the excess of mid-2010s found-footage horror titles.
This subgenre had become a cliché rather than an exciting subversion and not even the return of the
Blair Witch brand name could overcome that. Plus, the marketing didn't promise anything
substantially new compared to the original, further cementing its cruel box office fate.
It would be understandable for most moviegoers who saw the trailer for Brahms: The Boy II to respond
with confusion and by asking, "Was there a first The Boy?" Indeed there was an original The Boy,
though it was released back in January 2016 to little fanfare. While not necessarily a flop,
it also wasn't exactly the kind of movie that generated enough enthusiasm to get
people hankering for another installment. But rare is the mildly profitable horror
movie that doesn't inspire a sequel, so Brahms: The Boy II arrived in theaters in February 2020.
Debuting in this timeframe meant that Brahms had only a few weeks to make money before the COVID-19
pandemic would totally upend the entire theatrical business. But even before that crisis took hold,
Brahms was a box office nonstarter that grossed only $18.9 million globally on a $10 million
budget. Not only was the original The Boy not beloved by any stretch of the imagination,
it was also four years old by the time a sequel arrived, an eternity when it comes
to horror. Any potential revenue to be soaked up through brand name recognition
was long gone by this point, resulting in an inexplicable sequel nobody asked for.
"If you'd like to go, all you need to do is to say, 'I'd like to go now.'"
Case 39 started filming back in 2006, and under normal conditions,
it would've been ready to go for either a 2007 or 2008 release. However,
this horror film wouldn't find its way to movie theaters until October 2010,
despite being headlined by actors like Renee Zellweger and Bradley Cooper. So what happened?
Just a month before Case 39's debut, Entertainment Weekly published an extensive rundown of its
troubled history, with Paramount Pictures scheduling two separate dates in 2008 and
2009 before leaving it undated for over a year. Director Christian Alvart attributed
this to the film being a smaller-scale affair that the studio didn't see as a priority.
Whatever the reason for the constant delays, all the rescheduling and then the
abrupt release didn't signal much in the way of confidence. With only a minimal promotional push,
Case 39 grossed just $28.7 million globally on a $21 million budget. Part of the problem
wasn't just the marketing, but also the crowded marketplace. October 2010 was
full of horror movies, including Saw 3D and Paranormal Activity 2,
with Case 39 opening directly against the vampire flick Let Me In. Opening a film
with so little buzz against so many other scary films just cemented the deadly fate of Case 39.
Every horror franchise hits its financial low point eventually. For the Nightmare on
Elm Street series, this all-time low point came with 1994's Wes Craven's New Nightmare,
which topped out at just $18 million. Director Wes Craven attempted something fresh with New
Nightmare, with a new version of Freddy Krueger and a meta-narrative involving
the filming of a new Nightmare on Elm Street movie within the movie. But that
high-minded premise may have been a bit too impenetrable to mainstream audiences.
Other factors may have included a minimal marketing budget and competition from the likes
of Pulp Fiction. It also can't be ignored that in 1994, the shine had worn off Freddy Krueger quite
a bit. The previous Nightmare movies had garnered negative reviews and transformed the dream killer
from an intimidating foe into a predictable punchline. Even with New Nightmare promising
something different, audiences just weren't psyched for anything more. Considering everything
against it, it's honestly a wonder that it managed to even make the meager amount that it did.
"However it happens when the story dies, the evil is set free."
Nowadays, 1987's Near Dark is considered a cult classic that's garnered acclaim from
critics for its subversion of typical gender norms in Westerns as well as
widespread praise for a delightful performance from Bill Paxton. It's proved to be enduringly
popular enough to make it seem odd that the film wasn't just a box office dud
in its original theatrical release, but barely even got released into theaters.
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, Near Dark grossed $3.3 million domestically,
with no recorded international box office figures to speak of. That was nowhere near
enough to cover its $5 million budget, but the problems weren't on the movie itself. Instead,
the faults lie with the distributor, which released Near Dark in only 262 theaters. For
comparison's sake, the original Hellraiser that same year managed to play in 1,104
locations. With no real opportunities for moviegoers to actually go out and
watch Near Dark on the big screen, how could it ever suck up any profitability?
Who doesn't love Anthony Hopkins' iconic portrayal of Hannibal Lecter? While other actors like Brian
Cox and Mads Mikkelsen have also delivered beloved portrayals of this cannibal doctor, Hopkins'
Oscar-winning performance is undoubtedly the one most associated with the character. This proved
to be an insurmountable hurdle for 2007's Hannibal Rising, the first feature film adaptation of the
character in over two decades that attempted to present a Hannibal Lecter movie without Hopkins.
This prequel explored a younger version of Lecter, as played by French actor Gaspard
Ulliel. It's easy to see why producers saw dollar signs at the prospect of making a
new movie with Lecter that didn't require handing over a hefty paycheck to Hopkins.
But the doctor just wasn't as appealing to mass audiences without him on board. Plus,
there really wasn't any demand from even die-hard fans to explore this backstory.
With Hannibal Rising coming on the heels of two other Lecter movies in the six preceding years,
moviegoers had already had their fill, and a prequel without Hopkins
certainly wasn't going to inspire them to return. And so, Hannibal Rising grossed
just $80.5 million globally, a far cry from The Silence of the Lambs' $275.7 million.
"Yeah. That was good."
Genre mashups are frequently a tough sell to audiences. Even horror comedies have often
struggled financially, let alone more complex mixtures like sci-fi Westerns.
So it shouldn't be considered a shock that the 1999 Western horror cannibal
flick Ravenous didn't exactly set the box office on fire. Ultimately,
this unusual horror title grossed just $2 million in its entire theatrical run.
Adding to all the inherent hurdles were the facts that Ravenous was only released
in 1,040 locations and it didn't have any big names in its cast. It was also
an odd fit for a wide theatrical release and likely would have fared better years later,
with more fluid release models that deliver oddball titles to niche audiences with greater
ease. But the saga of Ravenous didn't end with its box office run. Like many horror movies that
initially stumbled at the box office, it's managed to ride a second wave of life on home video.
There were a lot of problems facing 2018's Slender Man. Chief among them
was the gruesome fact that the release was coming on the heels of a tragedy in Wisconsin
where two teenage girls attempted to kill a friend because of the supposed influence of
the Slender Man. There was also the fact that when the movie came out,
it was arriving way too late to fully capitalize on the initial popularity of its titular monster.
Then there was the reported $28 million price tag. On top of everything else,
the producers of Slender Man clashed with Sony over the film's marketing, leading the studio to
consider selling the film to a streaming service. Considering all this, it's no surprise then that
Slender Man wiped out at the box office with just $51.9 million globally. That put it behind
the worldwide grosses of notably cheaper 2018 horror titles like Hereditary and Truth or Dare.
Some movies manage to outrun their problematic pasts, but Slender Man ended up consumed by them.
"Hey, come here."
The 1982 John Carpenter-directed classic The Thing wasn't exactly beloved upon its initial release,
but it's enjoyed a reconsideration in the ensuing years, with fans coming to embrace
it as one of the best horror movies ever made. At the time of its release, though,
it was panned by contemporary critics, who were quick to bash the film's over-the-top gore and
measured pacing. As it was going up against other sci-fi giants such as Blade Runner and E.T.,
it's not too shocking that a slow burn like The Thing got outmatched. But it's
a little more surprising that the 2011 prequel of the same name did even worse.
The latter version featured an impressive international cast of actors, including
Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as researchers at
a Norwegian Antarctic outpost who discover a shapeshifting alien. Despite high expectations,
The Thing proved to be a massive box office bomb by only making $31 million
on a $38 million budget. As Box Office Mojo reported at the time of its opening weekend,
"There was a pervasive cynicism about the need for a remake within [the horror] community,
though, and with an identical story, location,
and title, there didn't appear to be much of a reason to head to theaters."
It also didn't help that the production team infamously ditched all their practical effects
in favor of subpar CGI, which was a crucial reason why fans love the 1982 version so much.
A rather unique entry on this list is Jennifer's Body, the 2009 horror-slasher-comedy directed by
Karyn Kusama and written by Diablo Cody about a high school girl who's possessed by a demon.
It stars Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried, with a supporting cast that includes Adam Brody,
among others. It's been critically reappraised in recent years as a satirical and self-aware piece
of feminist filmmaking that's also gained a place in the pantheon of queer and bisexual cinema.
According to Cody, the marketing team behind Jennifer's Body didn't do the
movie any favors. As she explained to Vox in 2018,
"The movie was marketed all wrong. I'm not usually an argumentative person. In fact,
I'm really passive. But that was like the one time I've gotten in a fight because I was so furious."
While the film did actually get a notable female-leaning audience, the marketing issues
were enough to cause Jennifer's Body to be a box office disappointment. It made only about $6.8
million during its opening weekend and only $31.5 million worldwide during its whole run.
"I am a god."
"Okay."
Directed by Guillermo del Toro, the 2015 gothic horror romance Crimson
Peak seemingly had everything going for it. It boasted an award-winning director,
an intriguing setting, and a stacked cast of Hollywood talent including Tom Hiddleston and
Jessica Chastain. The plot told the mysterious tale of a woman solving otherworldly clues
in a spooky mansion, seemingly haunted by the ghosts of previous inhabitants.
Despite all this, Crimson Peak was a disappointment at the box office.
Audiences were mostly uninterested, as it racked up only $31 million total in
North America. While it did make a profit in total with a $74 million worldwide haul,
it still remains seen as a major disappointment for a movie with such considerable star power.
According to Deadline's analysis, the film underperformed primarily due to
it being up against bigger and possibly better movies, with the site reporting,
"Crimson Peak suffered from a very competitive PG-13 adult market
where such films as [The] Martian and Bridge of Spies were overperforming."
2006's Slither was one of director James Gunn's first major big-screen projects
after his time in the ultra-low-budget world of Troma movies. Gunn is now best
known for his stewardship of the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise and his strong hand
in overseeing DC projects like The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker. But the struggles of
Slither show that before all that, he had to emerge from much humbler beginnings.
One thing fans consistently love about Gunn is his sense of humor,
which carries over into nearly all of his films. But in the case of Slither,
that may have been more of a liability than an asset. The film confused audiences at the
time by mixing horror with black comedy and sci-fi to concoct a strange story that many
viewers struggled to wrap their heads around. Even at the time, Gunn revealed that it was
a bit too overwhelming for some audiences. As he admitted to The Hollywood Reporter in 2006,
"I think that because it was comedy-horror instead of pure horror is where the problem
lay. It's the first comedy-horror in a long time, and maybe the marketplace
just isn't ready for comedy-horror yet. It's difficult to think of other explanations."