At the box office, horror movies have a tendency to run out of steam faster than a teenager being chased through the woods by a masked killer. Even the most successful scary stories are known to earn the bulk of their money in the first weekend of release.
Yet “Smile” and “Barbarian,” two recent big-screen thrillers, have defied conventional wisdom by impressively sticking around in theaters after opening weekend. Ticket sales for “Smile,” in particular, nominally declined in between its first and second weekend of release, a sign of exceptionally positive word-of-mouth.
Over the weekend, Paramount’s “Smile” retained the No. 1 spot in North America with $18 million, sliding just 18% from its $22 million start. At the international box office, something even crazier happened: “Smile” actually improved on its debut by 31%, bringing in $19.1 million in its second weekend. And it continues to flex during the week, adding $2.6 million domestically on Monday. After only 12 days in theaters, the movie is already nearing the coveted $100 million mark. It’s a bloody-good result for the $17 million-budgeted “Smile.”
“It’s a stellar hold,” says Shawn Robbins, the chief analyst at Box Office Pro. “It’s hard to oversell it.”
A drop as small as 18% isn’t only remarkable for horror, it’s a slay for a movie in any genre. Ticket sales generally tend to dip at least 50% from opening weekend, though scary movies regularly witness much more drastic drops in box office returns. In the case of “Smile,” it means that audience members liked the movie enough to convince their friends to watch it in theaters as well.
“This movie hit a nerve,” says Chris Aronson, Paramount’s president of domestic distribution. “You can’t hold the way we held without the word-of-mouth that says, ‘Holy shit, you gotta see this movie.’”
“Barbarian,” too, is enduring at the box office despite its softer opening weekend. The film, about an Airbnb booking gone horribly, horribly wrong, hasn’t dropped more than roughly 40% in four weeks, putting ticket sales at $36 million. The Disney and 20th Century production carries a slim $4 million price tag. For “Barbarian,” the week-to-week holds are especially impressive because it landed a “C+” Cinemascore, a disappointing grade that would be a nail in the coffin to most other original movies.
Yet for “Barbarian,” the thriller’s zany and flat-out disturbing twists and turns got people talking — and buying tickets. It tapped into the zeitgeist in a way that’s necessary these days for original properties to compete against the glut of offerings on streaming and at the movies.
“With original horror movies, it comes down to reception,” Robbins adds.
“Smile” inspired a different degree of chatter, which is notable because it wasn’t initially expected to play on the big screen at all. The film, starring Sosie Bacon (the daughter of Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick) as a therapist who becomes haunted by hallucinations after witnessing a patient die by suicide, was commissioned for Paramount+, the studio’s fledgling streaming service. But after rowdy, affirming test screenings, Paramount was encouraged to give the film a full theatrical rollout.
“It feels like people are surprised at the depth of it, because maybe they were expecting more of a total jump-scare thing. People are appreciating it for the real, grounded filmmaking,” Bacon told Variety in the wake of its release. “I definitely recommend people with big mom-trauma to not see it.”
The studio also succeeded with clever marketing tactics that went viral in the lead-up to its debut. Notably, actors were hired to sit behind home plate while flashing creepy, unsettling grins at televised Major League baseball games.
“We made ‘Smile’ part of the conversation,” Aronson says.
Box office analysts point to several other factors, including the prime Halloween-time release dates, the overall lack of competition from major studios and the fact that these movies are playing only in theaters. And the genre has remained, even through the pandemic, one of the most reliable theatrical draws for the simple reason that people love to be scared in a communal setting. Several horror movies, like “Scream” (which fell 59% in its second weekend) and “Nope” (which fell 58% in its second weekend), have scored at the box office in COVID times.
Female audiences also propelled the ticket sales for “Smile” in its second frame; women accounted for 55% of returns compared to 48% in the inaugural weekend. It’s possible those moviegoers were catching the female-skewing “The Woman King” and “Don’t Worry Darling” earlier in the month.
“Obviously there’s the home field advantage factor for horror films playing in September and October, but what’s really boosting their box office appeal is the lack of event-level Hollywood films in the marketplace,” says Jeff Bock, an analyst with Exhibitor Relations. “Sometimes, being the right film at the right time is enough.”
“Smile” and “Barbarian” will soon be challenged by the Jamie Lee Curtis-led “Halloween Ends,” which opens in theaters and on Peacock on Friday. With the benefit of a built-in fan base, the supposed cap to the long-running slasher series is expected to start strong at the box office — likely in line with its predecessor, 2021’s “Halloween Kills,” which opened to $49 million. “Halloween Kills,” which also landed simultaneously on Peacock, fell a catastrophic 70% in its sophomore outing. Sometimes, you can’t outrun a genre’s legacy.
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