The viral horror film earned a record $10 million opening day for Neon while "Despicable Me" hits $5 billion in lifetime grosses
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Universal/Illumination’s “Despicable Me 4” is continuing to carry the torch from “Inside Out 2” with another No. 1 at the box office this weekend, but the big surprise belongs to Osgood Perkins’ horror film “Longlegs,” which is setting a new record for its distributor Neon with an estimated $22 million opening weekend.
Neon, along with A24, have carved out a niche for themselves feeding an appetite for intense independent horror, but the $910 million opening day total “Longlegs” earned from 2,510 theaters is catapulting the film to an opening weekend that is more than double the $7-9 million that trackers had projected. It is also more than triple the previous top opening weekend for Neon, which came this past March with the $5.3 million opening of Sydney Sweeney’s “Immaculate.”
Acquired by Neon at the 2023 European Film Market, “Longlegs” has enjoyed rave reviews from critics since its premiere at Beyond Fest in Los Angeles this past May. Those reviews have been boosted by a highly effective digital marketing campaign that shrouded Nicolas Cage’s appearance as the titular satanic serial killer in mystery while displaying the film’s chilling and relentlessly tense mood and playing lead star Maika Monroe’s actual heartrate when seeing Cage for the first time while the cameras rolled.
It is possible that “Longlegs” will have a frontloaded run, as opening night audiences are split on whether it lived up to the hype with a C+ on CinemaScore and a 68% audience Rotten Tomatoes score. But with a reported budget of less than $10 million, it is already a theatrical success.
“Despicable Me 4,” meanwhile, continues to lead the way with $44 million this weekend, dropping just 41% from the $75 million Fri.-Sun. total it earned last weekend. The Illumination film now has an estimated domestic total of $210 million as it pushes the lifetime grosses for the “Despicable Me” franchise past $5 billion worldwide, becoming the first ever animated franchise to reach that mark.
Less impressive this weekend is Sony/Apple’s “Fly Me to the Moon,” which is estimated for an opening weekend of just $10 million from 3,356 locations against an Apple-financed budget of $100 million. As with previous films like “Napoleon” and “Argylle,” this Greg Berlanti-directed period romantic comedy is the latest high budget film brought by Apple to theaters through a distribution partnership with a legacy studio.
By normal metrics, this opening would be the sign of a major bomb, but Apple has used its Silicon Valley largesse to throw down immense amounts of money on these theatrical releases in the hopes of drawing interest in seeing these films on Apple TV+, and the studio has kept its metric of success on that front extremely opaque.
As for “Fly Me to the Moon,” the silver lining is that audience reception for the film is considerably strong, earning an A- on CinemaScore to go with Rotten Tomatoes scores of 68% critics and 89% audience. There is still a possibility that the film might be able to save some face if older audiences, who are much more likely to see this film set during the space race of the 60s, turn out in later weeks.
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