Box Office Report: ‘Lights Out’ Still Going Strong While ‘Ghostbusters’ Continues to Struggle

Horror isn’t easily dominating the box office at the moment, but we’ve seen a few high profile releases land in theaters over the last few weeks, and there are some interesting numbers to look at.

We’ll start with the lowest ranked genre film still inside the top 10.

Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman’s creepy thriller/horror hybrid Nerve opened in the eighth position at the box office after arriving on approximately 2,500 screens. The film debuted to the tune of $9 million. Now, after a total of five days on the circuit the film has sold enough tickets to push the film’s current take up to $15 million. Shot on a rumored $20 million budget, Nerve will comfortably recover its budgetary figures, and it appears it will do so without the assistance of the international market. At this point in time the movie has only been released in the US.

Now we’ll Move on to one of 2016’s biggest financial disappointments, Ghostbusters. Paul Feig’s rendition of Ghostbusters continued its box office descent, adding $9.8 million to move its domestic total to $106 million. Those aren’t terrible numbers by any means, and now that the international market is enjoying the chance to look into the film, Ghostbusters has accumulated a total $158 million worldwide take.

That means Ghostbusters, after 17 days on the market has cleared its $144 million budget. However, a film of this scale, with the tremendous promotional push it received, would typically be expected to reel in much, much stronger (no doubt Sony was hoping to see the $200 million mark cleared in the domestic market at this point) numbers. Sitting at number seven in the box office top 10, domestic tallies are falling.  But the question of a sequel will soon surface as a genuine talking point. Fiscally speaking, the movie did its job in recovering all of its budget, despite being buried in negative publicity and ugly reviews.

With the international surge, Ghostbusters will exit the box office ranks as a skin-of-the-teeth success story. However, now that so many have seen the film, and now that so many still feel as though it was an unnecessary reboot, what kind of move will Sony make? Hollywood is all about dollar signs, and Ghostbusters is no longer in the red, which means, it is conceivable that we see yet another Ghostbusters film from Sony. Let’s just hope they remember to tell an actual story.

Lights Out sits at the number five position at the box office, having already obliterated its $4.9 million budget thanks to a current domestic total of $42 million. International markets have also been kind to the film, adding an additional $20 million to the pic’s worldwide total, which sits at about $63 million dollars. There’s little doubt that Warner Bros will look to turn this one into a successful franchise, as it’s already far surpassed commercial expectations.

That’s where the genre stands in regards to the top tier of the box office. All in all, the summer has been relatively kind to horror.

Independence Day: Resurgence has now earned a worldwide total of $372 million. The Purge: Election Year turned a $10 million budget into a worldwide total of $95 million, all but guaranteeing we’ll see a fourth film in the franchise.

Horror isn’t blowing the competition away, but – again – it is putting up respectable summer figures. With the dark superhero/antihero Suicide Squad slated to arrive on August fifth, The Mind’s Eye, The Remains and Let’s Be Evil also premiering on the fifth, things are mighty promising for the genre’s immediate future. Knowing that Before I Wake makes its way to theaters next month, and Fede Alvarez’s Don’t Breathe will arrive later this month, it’s probably safe to assume that summer 2016 is a year that horror fans will look back on fondly.