After weeks of creepy trailers and very good pre-release buzz, Neon’s long-awaited Longlegs finally hit theaters this weekend. Directed by Osgood Perkins, attention on the Maika Monore and Nicolas Cage-led horror thriller has built up a lot of goodwill, and that appears to have paid off big time at the theater.
Despite some mixed impressions, Deadline reports Longlegs has earned $22.6 million domestically. It’s the biggest opening to date of Neon’s seven-year stint, and the biggest opening for an original horror movie this year. The studio’s definitely proud of it: in a press release, it noted the movie’s performance was similar to Blair Witch Project. “Not since [Blair Witch] has there been an independent genre film that out-projected, out-performed and over-indexed so wildly that it seemed to the industry it ‘came out of nowhere.’”
Neon really went all-out to make sure everyone knew that Longlegs existed. Trailers played ahead of many tentpole movies in the last several months, and a marketing campaign further encouraged viewers to uncover potential secrets. It also helped to hide Cage’s appearance–if your movie’s already looking creepy as hell, the only way to see what its co-lead looks like is to steel yourself and see the damn thing. Neon’s distribution boss Elissa Federoff noted the marketing was “built with creativity and imagination,” and understandably took pride in the studio’s efforts. “We built a movement around this film,” she noted. “When audiences can tell that it will be original and something they haven’t seen before, they’ll rally behind it.”
Hail Satan. pic.twitter.com/ZFlLHKIOV9
— NEON (@neonrated) July 14, 2024
As strong as Longlegs did, it still ultimately fell in second place behind Despicable Me 4. The Illumination film added another $44.7 million from North America to its haul, bringing its domestic box office to $211.1 million. An additional $88 million oversees puts it at $437.8 million worldwide, helping the larger Despicable Me franchise cross $5 billion. It’s surely gonna make more money over the next few weeks, so get ready to bring your kids to Minions 3 in 2027. Both Inside Out 2 and A Quiet Place: Day One were also solid earners this weekend, respectively bringing their global totals to $1.35 billion and $203.6 million.
Next weekend’s big blockbuster is Universal and Warner Bros.’ Twisters, which has been building up hype of its own in recent weeks. The following week on July 26 is the long-awaited Deadpool & Wolverine, which is likely gonna make a lot of money, especially since that’s also the same weekend as San Diego Comic-Con. With how well movies have done in this month and June, it’s hard to believe we were fretting about theatrical movies so much back in May.
While we’re here, did Longlegs live up to its hype, or were you left wondering what the big deal was? Let us know in the comments below.
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