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Horror Fans Are Loving the Wildly Fun ‘Overlord,’ But It’s Failing at the Box Office

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5 years ago

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Horror is dead. Just kidding.

Paramount Pictures hoped to avoid the October clutter and catch post-Halloween audiences with Overlord, their WW II-themed horror film from J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot. The Julius Avery-directed film was riding high off positive reviews out of this past September’s Fantastic Fest, but couldn’t connect with general audiences as it barely topped $10M in its opening weekend. (It could have been worse – Sony’s The Girl in the Spider’s Web: A New Dragon Tattoo Story only took in $8M.) With a reported budget of $38M, it added another $9M overseas for a global take of $19M. It needs at least $125-150M worldwide to break even. Unless China comes through in spades, chalk this one up as a flop.

There’s a bit of a parallel between Overlord‘s failure to draw in an audience and that of Fox’s The Predator, both films that went for brawn over brains, delivering nonstop action and buckets of fun. While the latter may not have had the full support of the community, Overlord appeared to draw strong positive responses from horror fans across social media platforms and here on Bloody Disgusting. From phenomenal character development to wicked, gross-out effects, Overlord delivered a perfect hybrid between the original Predator, Inglourious Basterds and Re-Animator.

It appears that Paramount sold us horror fans, but missed out on the general public – could they have marketed this as a World War II thriller as opposed to that of horror? It’s quite possible trying to sell both audiences bit the studio in the ass. No matter, Overlord is one of the most entertaining genre films of the year and we highly recommend seeing it.

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Horror movie fanatic who co-founded Bloody Disgusting in 2001. Producer on Southbound, V/H/S/2/3/94, SiREN, Under the Bed, and A Horrible Way to Die. Chicago-based. Horror, pizza and basketball connoisseur. Taco Bell daily. Franchise favs: Hellraiser, Child's Play, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Scream and Friday the 13th. Horror 365 days a year.

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Matilda Firth Joins the Cast of Director Leigh Whannell’s ‘Wolf Man’ Movie

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8 hours ago

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April 19, 2024

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Pictured: Matilda Firth in 'Christmas Carole'

Filming is underway on The Invisible Man director Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man for Universal and Blumhouse, which will be howling its way into theaters on January 17, 2025.

Deadline reports that Matilda Firth (Disenchanted) is the latest actor to sign on, joining Christopher Abbott (Poor Things),  Julia Garner (The Royal Hotel), and Sam Jaeger.

The project will mark Whannell’s second monster movie and fourth directing collaboration with Blumhouse Productions (The Invisible Man, Upgrade, Insidious: Chapter 3).

Wolf Man stars Christopher Abbott as a man whose family is being terrorized by a lethal predator.

Writers include Whannell & Corbett Tuck as well as Lauren Schuker Blum & Rebecca Angelo.

Jason Blum is producing the film. Ryan Gosling, Ken Kao, Bea Sequeira, Mel Turner and Whannell are executive producers. Wolf Man is a Blumhouse and Motel Movies production.

In the wake of the failed Dark Universe, Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man has been the only real success story for the Universal Monsters brand, which has been struggling with recent box office flops including the comedic Renfield and period horror movie The Last Voyage of the Demeter. Giving him the keys to the castle once more seems like a wise idea, to say the least.

Wolf Man 2024

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