Movies
‘The Predator’ Wins the Box Office as ‘The Nun’ Tops $200M; ‘Slender Man’ Nears $50M’
As expected, The Predator won this weekend’s box office with an estimated $24M domestic. It’s an interesting film for 20th Century Fox who allegedly spent $88M+ on the Shane Black-directed sequel, which means it needs to cross at the very least $300M worldwide to break even. This weekend wasn’t strong enough domestically, with the film’s success riding on international numbers, which start off at an estimated $30.7M for a $54.7 worldwide total. This does not look good, folks. Still, I always wonder, how does the release of a franchise film also affect home video numbers and franchising? These are things to always think about. There’s also the Disney factor, which will come into play by next summer. This could very well be the last Predator film ever made.
As for New Line Cinema’s The Nun, it took a slight beating from the competition, but was so strong in its opening weekend ($131M worldwide) that it managed yet another estimated $18.2M domestic ($84M total). It’s now crossed $200M worldwide in just its second week of release ($228.7M global with $143.6M international). The latest hit in the studio’s hugely successful Conjuring universe, The Nun has pushed the already highest-grossing horror franchise to more than $1.4 billion…and counting.
Tom Molter, Head of International Distribution, Warner Bros. Pictures, stated, “The Nun
continues to scare up audiences around the world, and records are being broken in every region – particularly in Latin America and Mexico, where the popularity of star Demian Bichir has drawn fans to the cinema in big numbers. We applaud the whole cast, as well as all of the filmmakers behind The Nun, on this tremendous success.”
Digressing, in the story of two similar audiences, The Nun‘s success ate into The Predator‘s opening a bit, while on the other side of things, The Predator also took away from The Nun‘s ability to dominate for a second straight week.
Sony Screen Gems’ Slender Man, which nobody is talking about, is quietly nearing $50M worldwide. As I previously wrote, this reminds me of last year’s Jigsaw, the eight film in the Saw franchise that several websites declared a flop even though it grossed $100M on a measly $10M budget. (They were wrong in their reporting and a ninth film is currently in development.) While Slender Man isn’t exactly a hit, it’s performing well enough that we should take note. We’ve talked about this several times prior, but the Sylvain White-directed Creepypasta was butchered by the studio heads out of fear of public retaliation (2018 for the win). The studio also pulled back on the marketing spend and quietly dumped the film in theaters with the expectation of taking one to the chin. Yet, with minimal marketing, horrendous reviews and terrible word of mouth, Slender Man has just topped $50M worldwide. With a reported $10M budget, and a less than typical marketing spend, the Joey King-starrer is well into the profit territory for the studio. Reflecting on this yet again, can you imagine if Screen Gems backed this little movie and didn’t fuck it up? It could have been a massive hit. While some are calling Slender Man (the character) dead before he even had a chance to spook audiences, I say it’s possible that this is just the beginning. A sequel – whether it be theatrical or direct-to-video – is more than likely at this point.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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