The box office underperformance of The Mummy back in 2017 notably spelled the end of Universal’s “Dark Universe” plans, the film intended to kickstart a Marvel-style universe for the Universal Monsters to hang around in. With the “Dark Universe” dead on arrival, Universal quickly pivoted to smaller one-shot horror tales, kicking off with The Invisible Man in 2020.
Made on a budget of just $7 million, director Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man scared up $144 million worldwide right before the pandemic decimated the box office, suggesting that Universal had finally figured out a way to turn their iconic monsters into box office stars again.
But then came Renfield earlier this year, a horror-comedy take on Dracula and his loyal henchman. Made on a reported production budget of $65 million, Renfield was a flop in theaters back in April of this year, sinking its fangs into just $26.7 million at the box office. Just a few short months later, Universal is trying again with The Last Voyage of the Demeter.
Directed by André Øvredal (The Autopsy of Jane Doe, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark), this latest Dracula movie leaves the comedy behind for a classic, Hammer-style horror movie at sea, and it’s got a $45 million production budget attached to it. The film is an adaptation of a single chapter from Bram Stoker’s classic horror novel, known as “The Captain’s Log.”
Released into 2,715 theaters here in the States over the weekend, The Last Voyage of the Demeter unfortunately had an even lower opening than Renfield, scaring up just $6.5 million in its box office debut. It was enough to put Demeter in the #5 spot on the weekend’s box office chart, but not nearly enough to suggest the film will ultimately be profitable in theaters.
For the sake of box office context, The Last Voyage of the Demeter will likely need to pass $100 million before it’s in the black for Universal, which seems quite impossible at this time.
So what happened? Were audiences not aware of Demeter‘s existence? Are audiences no longer interested in Dracula? Or did they just plain not quite grasp what this movie even was? It’s impossible to know, but it seems a period piece horror movie, based on a novel written in the 1800s, just didn’t provide enough of a hook to put butts in the seats here in 2023.
Where do the Universal Monsters go from here? Universal has been having a hell of a time reintroducing audiences to the classic titans of the genre, with films including The Wolfman (2010), Dracula Untold (2014), The Mummy (2017), and now Renfield and The Last Voyage of the Demeter failing to breathe new box office life into these silver screen icons of terror.
The Universal Monsters brand isn’t looking all that strong, but the key to their future may be found in Leigh Whannell’s aforementioned box office hit The Invisible Man. Made for just $7 million, the forward-thinking remake of a classic horror tale was set up for success in a way these other Universal Monsters reboots were not, and perhaps Universal should be learning some important lessons from their own success story just three years ago. Smaller movies have a better chance at turning a profit, and that seems particularly true with these Monsters.
Up next, Radio Silence (Ready or Not, Scream) will be directing an untitled monster thriller for Universal, which is reportedly a take on Dracula’s Daughter. Stay tuned for more.
Writer Bragi Schut’s script The Last Voyage of the Demeter has been floating around for many years now, with several different directors attached at various points. The director who eventually ended up board the ship is André Øvredal (The Autopsy of Jane Doe, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark), announced back in 2021 as the director for the Amblin Partners film.
Corey Hawkins (Kong: Skull Island, “The Walking Dead”) stars in The Last Voyage of the Demeter. The latest version of the script was written by Zak Olkewicz (Bullet Train).
The film is “based on a single chapter, the Captain’s Log, from Bram Stoker’s classic 1897 novel Dracula. The chapter tells the story of the Russian schooner, Demeter, which was chartered to carry private cargo – twenty four unmarked wooden crates – from Carpathia to London. The film will detail the strange events that befell the doomed crew as they attempt to survive the ocean voyage, stalked each night by a terrifying presence onboard the ship. When it finally arrived near Whitby Harbour, it was a derelict. There was no trace of the crew.”
The cast also includes Aisling Franciosi, Liam Cunningham, David Dastmalchian, Jon Jon Briones, Stefan Kapicic, and Nikolai Nikolaeff, with Javier Botet as Dracula.
