Movies
‘Annabelle: Creation’ Passing $300 Million Worldwide!
I knew all of our attention would turn to IT once it broke box office records, which is why I rushed up an article pointing out that David F. Sandberg‘s Annabelle: Creation is this year’s most profitable horror film, not Universal Pictures’ Get Out. This isn’t to take anything away from Jordan Peele’s masterpiece but should illustrate just how potent the horror genre is right now. It’s absolutely insane, although I wouldn’t say surprising as horror always performs well during tumultuous times. Things are awful right now and we all want an escape, which is where horror thrives. Studios and horror fans are reaping the benefits.
Digressing, Get Out sits at $250 million worldwide on a $4.5M budget. On a $15M budget, Annabelle: Creation is about to topple $300 million worldwide, with it set to surpass $100M domestically and $200M internationally. Incredible.
Between IT and Annabelle: Creations, Warner Bros./New Line Cinema looks to top $1 BILLION from the horror genre alone by the end of 2017. Holy. Shit.
There are lessons here that I’ve gone over in a previous article. In short, studios needn’t overreact and start pouring money carelessly into horror films, but they do need to start taking our genre seriously and put some weight behind it. Even with mother! underperforming, studios need to take these “safe” risks because one of them could become the next franchise or universe they’re so desperately seeking.
Two things that have proven to be pretty dependable at the box office in recent years are horror movies and Christopher Nolan movies. With Nolan’s The Odyssey absolutely dominating the box office this past weekend, many fans of Nolan’s work have been left hungry for a Nolan-directed horror movie. After all, The Odyssey does whet the appetite for Nolan nightmare fuel.
Christopher Nolan has brushed up against the horror genre in the past with 2002 thriller Insomnia, but does he have any interest in someday making a full-on horror movie?
Nolan tells the Empire Podcast in a new chat, “I’ve always been interested in doing a horror film.”
“But horror is most successful when the conceptual framework of whatever the story is is just so undeniable. I think there are very few really great horror movies,” Nolan continues.
So why hasn’t Christopher Nolan directed a horror movie yet?
He explains to Empire, “I’ve never clicked with a particular idea or concept that worked for me. I love the genre. Of all genres, it’s the most visceral. Where the direct response to the audience is the most important. That is to say, you’re trying to make people literally feel something in their bones about what’s going on on-screen.”
Nolan calls horror “a genre in which experimentation is demanded.” He explains, “I go to see a lot of horror films with my kids these days, and you’ll see things in the first half an hour, 45 minutes of any horror film that you’d never see in another genre. Risks that are taken. Dangerous approaches to things. Admittedly, a lot of movies can’t sustain that to the end. But in the horror genre, that kind of innovation is not just respected – it’s really demanded.”
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is now playing in theaters.
Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow in Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’ (2008)
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