The Box Office Surprise of Top Gun: Maverick: How Paramount Made Sense of the Smirks and Other Horror Hits
One of Paramount’s biggest blockbusters this year is a surprise hit that hasn’t slowed down at the box office since opening at No. 1 a few weeks ago. I am not talking about the movie, Top Gun: Maverick. The studio had a horror hit called “Smile”.
The film, which stars Sosie Bacon as a psychiatrist being tormented by visions of horrifying smirks, opened to $22.6 million at the domestic box office late September. The film’s $17 million production budget was less than impressive but it still took the top position in its opening weekend.
The old model of sub-par scare fests aimed at a kill it Friday and drop huge on Saturday is mostly history as new creative custodians of the genre are more focused on a solid overall experience for the viewer. The results of the box office have been impressive.
“We had people creepily smile at a morning show, a bunch of baseball games and it took off better than we had hoped,” Weinstock said. Even if you were not a fan of baseball it was still wildly popular on social media.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/31/media/horror-movies-box-office-smile-halloween/index.html
What is the story behind the big bang? How a killer clown made viewers vomit and faint in 2018 inspired by a pandemic horror film
Many horror films this year have done the same, showing that — aside from superhero movies — horror is Hollywood’s most dependable genre at the box office.
The film industry is still recovering from the pandemic. Audiences have been sporadic and the overall North America box office is down about 34% from the pre-Covid levels of 2019. In short, it’s a spooky time for Hollywood.
Yet horror continues to be seemingly immune to the streaming revolution. It is not uncommon for low-cost horror films to pull audiences off the couch and into theaters.
The film about a killer clown that made viewers vomit and faint is finding an audience. The film, which came with a reported budget of just $250,000, has made more than $7.6 million worldwide — more than 30 times its production cost.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/31/media/horror-movies-box-office-smile-halloween/index.html
Uplifted Horror: Where are we now? Where do we come from, and what do we need to do? What do we want to see in a future film?
There is no other place like being with hundreds of strangers in a room all having the same experience. Weinstock said something. You’re sitting there and you have no idea what’s going to happen next. I don’t believe that’s possible in a theater.
It’s been creeping up for a while now, an old breed of horror. A movie here, another there. But now, in 2022, the time has come to give it a name: elevator-pitch horror.
These films are just what they sound like: You can summarize their conceit in a single breath. Is it a ScaryAirbnb house? Check (Barbarian). The smile that will kill you in seven days is infectious and dishonest. OK (Smile)! Maybe it’s ghosts, or a beach that makes you old. Or a series of gruesome murders on a porn set (X). A comedy spin on the topic of cocaine bears is in store for next year. Not all of these came out this year, but this definitely feels like the concept’s apex.
Smart criticism of elevated horror has been around for a while. As critic Nia Edwards-Behi points out, the concept derives from a cultural snobbery, a distrust of genre. A lot of this has to do with a common critical mistake of assuming pulpier works thematic depth. No one who has watched Candyman, a parable about racism and gentrification, could argue that it was substanceless. Barbarian, which is difficult to summarize without spoiling, presents itself at first as a kind of slasher but then goes somewhere else entirely. It is possible to grow serious themes out of un serious worlds.
Look too close and the distinctions get muddier. It Follows could either fall into either of the two camps, because Ari Aster could probably pitch Midsommar in an elevator. Yet there is still a meaningful distinction to be made here. These films reflect how most audiences react to horror, without pretense. My friend is still hoping to one day write a film about stoners becoming zombies in London and they are debating if they would stay in the apartment with a strange man. Because one of the most valuable pleasures of horror films is precisely that literalness: the scenarios, impossible or possible, that might befall anyone in a frightening world.