In the last weekend of 2024, the North American film market is still hot. Paramount Pictures' "Sonic the Hedgehog 3" and Disney's "The Lion King: The Legend of Mufasa" are almost tied, ranking first and second on the weekend box office list with $38 million and $37.1 million respectively. This also pushed the North American total box office to $165 million over the weekend, setting a record for the best in the past five years; compared with the weekend box office of the same period last year, it has increased by 45%.
Behind them is the new vampire film "Nosferatu" which opened last week. The film was released in 2,992 theaters in North America and earned $21.15 million at the weekend. Because it coincided with the holiday, "Nosferatu" actually started to be released last Wednesday. If calculated based on five days, the film has currently earned $40.3 million at the North American box office. For an R-rated horror film, this is a pretty good result, and it also achieved the highest opening box office of the director Robert Eggers, who has always received good reviews, in his career, surpassing his previous works such as "The Witch", "The Lighthouse" and "Nordic".
Stills from Nosferatu
Obviously, "Nosferatu" is not a happy Christmas movie, but horror movies have indeed become popular in the North American film market in recent years. Even during the family-friendly holiday season, young people - 65% of the film's audience are between 18 and 34 years old - have no taboos and are willing to watch dark Gothic horror movies in theaters. This may inspire Hollywood companies to arrange large-scale releases of horror and thriller movies during the year-end holiday season in the future.
Focus Features, the producer of "Nosferatu", came up with a lot of gimmicks in its promotion. For example, they made some 100% full-size replicas of the sarcophagus where the villain Count Orlok, played by Bill Skarsgard, slept, and sold them to the public for as much as $20,000, which became a hot topic among horror movie super fans.
"The sarcophagus bed weighs 113 kilograms, is polished and hard-coated, and comes with a numbered certificate of identification. The entire sarcophagus is hand-crafted with high-quality materials, including a wooden base with intricate carvings. These highly collectible sarcophagi also have a unique internal structure with custom cushions and foam lids for easy opening at sunset. In other words, this is a stone coffin, and it's a standard size," the official shopping website of NBC Universal, the parent company of Focus Features, used the above text to promote this movie derivative product.
Nosferatu popcorn bucket for $30.99
In addition, several North American cinema chains have launched exclusive popcorn buckets for "Nosferatu", which are priced at $30.99, but were quickly snapped up by fans. The shape of this popcorn container is also a stone coffin. In recent years, Hollywood blockbusters including "Barbie", "Dune", and "Deadpool and Wolverine" have launched specially designed popcorn buckets, which are often sold out quickly even if they are expensive, creating additional income for the cinema and bringing more publicity to the film itself.
Another new film that was released on a large scale over the weekend was the music biopic "A Complete Unknown" produced by Searchlight Pictures. Directed by James Mangold and starring Timothée Chalamet, the film tells the story of Bob Dylan's rapid rise from an unknown folk singer in the New York music scene in the 1960s. After being released in 2,835 theaters, the film earned $11.6 million in weekend box office, ranking only sixth on the box office list. Its production cost was $65 million, $15 million more than the $50 million of "Nosferatu", which was somewhat unexpected. Although the film stars idol actor Timothée Chalamet, it is limited by the subject matter and is mainly aimed at middle-aged and elderly audiences. The overall box office prospects are not very optimistic. However, this biopic has long been a darling of the media, with a 78% freshness on the film review website "Rotten Tomatoes", and is also regarded as one of the hot works in the current awards season.
Another film aiming for an Oscar is A24's new film Babygirl, which was released in 2,115 theaters over the weekend. Directed by Dutch-born female director Halina Reijn and starring Nicole Kidman, the film tells the story of a dangerous relationship between a female corporate leader and a much younger male intern. During the entire promotional period, the film used various large-scale erotic scenes as a gimmick, hoping to attract young audiences to buy tickets. However, it only earned $4.39 million in box office revenue over the three days of the weekend, far below industry expectations, which seems to confirm a social survey that young American audiences are becoming less and less interested in love and sex themes.
