Every now and then, a modestly budgeted horror film comes along, and manages to capture the collective imagination of moviegoers. A good recent example of this phenomenon is 2013’s The Conjuring, which hauled in over $300 million on a budget of $20 million, and spawned a franchise that will soon include no less than 5 films. Success stories like these emphasize why horror never entirely falls out of favor with Hollywood, as it often doesn’t take much investment to earn a huge return.
The latest such horror success story is Get Out, the feature directing debut of Key & Peele co-creator Jordan Peele. Bolstered by terrific reviews and an intriguing, racially charged plot, Get Out took the box office by storm, scoring a $30 million opening weekend and the #1 spot on the domestic charts. Unlike many horror films, Get Out has ended up having good financial legs, falling to only the #2 spot in its second weekend, and the #3 spot this past weekend.
Even after all that good news, it would appear that Get Out’s journey is far from over. As of this past weekend, Get Out has crossed the $100 million mark at the box office, on a budget of only $4.5 million. To call that a pleasing return on investment would be a massive understatement, and has to have distributor Universal feeling quite happy. Additionally, The Wrap reports that with this milestone achieved, Peele now becomes the first black writer-director to earn more than $100 million theatrically with their debut feature.
While Universal and Peele are no doubt experiencing great joy over Get Out’s massive box office take, another pleased party is production studio Blumhouse, who has emerged in recent years as a reliable source for low to mid-budget horror flicks that tend to outperform expectations. Get Out is actually Blumhouse’s second major genre hit of 2017, with M. Night Shyamalan’s Split earning nearly $250 million worldwide on a budget of $9 million.
At this point, Peele likely has carte blanche as to what he’ll direct next, so it’ll be interesting whether he chooses to branch out to a different genre with his next effort, or stick with the horror material he clearly has quite the knack for doing right. Peele is a self-professed huge fan of horror movies, so one imagines he might not mind carving out a niche for himself in the world of fright flicks.
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Source: The Wrap
