Break out the birthday cake and unwrap that package that sure looks like it contains an eerily lifelike doll: Longlegs is celebrating a big milestone. Osgood Perkins‘ breakout horror film starring Maika Monroe as an unusually intuitive FBI agent and Nicolas Cage as the nightmarish serial killer she’s chasing is now officially 2024’s highest-grossing independent film.
According to a press release from Neon, the studio behind Longlegs, the film has now crossed the $100 million box-office mark worldwide. Furthermore, “with a current cumulative gross of $72 million in the U.S. and Canada, Longlegs is the highest independent film release of 2024 thus far and the top grossing R-rated horror film of 2024.” That nightmarish marketing campaign really worked!
Those numbers mark a huge achievement—especially considering the film has yet to open in certain key markets, including Italy and Latin America. So far worldwide, it’s scored big in the UK and Ireland (“the top grossing international territory for the film, currently with $10 million”), as well as Canada ($7 million).
Even more superlatives: Longlegs has grossed more in the U.S. than Neon’s previous top release, the Oscar-winning Parasite (which did earn more globally); it’s also “the highest grossing indie horror film of the last 10 years,” with a take that eclipses other notable recent hits, including Talk to Me, Insidious Chapter 3, and Hereditary.
With this in mind, Neon is clearly thrilled it’s got another Perkins horror movie in the pipeline—Stephen King adaptation The Monkey, coming in February—and that it’s producing It Follows sequel They Follow, starring Longlegs‘ Monroe.
On a broader scale, Longlegs‘ lucrative success stands to buoy the entire indie horror genre. Audiences who had a good time watching Nic Cage’s unnerving performance may be more likely to seek out other delightfully freaky, offbeat releases—and indie studios just got another nudge that, as always, investing in low-budget horror can reap huge rewards.
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