How recent box office trends can predict the future of horror

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A Quiet Place — Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

The First Half of 2018

The top five highest grossing horror films at the domestic box office in the first half of 2018 are: A Quiet Place, Insidious: The Last Key, The First Purge, Hereditary, and Truth or Dare. 2018 is off to a somewhat sluggish start when compared to the scintillating output of 2017.

When reviewing the top five grossing horror films thus far in 2018, we notice that Blumhouse continues to slay the competition with its low-budget, audience-friendly, slate. We are also seeing PG-13 horror movies outperform their R-rated brethren by a wide margin.

Hereditary – Courtesy of A24

Predicting the Future of Horror

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This box office analysis allows us to predict the types of horror films we will see in the next several years. After all, Hollywood is nothing if not predictable.

The biggest takeaway from the data I gathered is that low-budget, Jason Blum-produced horror is currently the cat’s meow at the box office. I expect to see an increased output of Blumhouse horror films over the next several years (5-10 theatrical releases per year, all budgeted at $10 million or less). The Blumhouse name coupled with a meager budget is almost a surefire formula for success that will prevail until audiences grow weary of these films.

About half of the successful horror films over the past several years belong to franchises, so I predict that we will see a healthy dose of sequels over the next few years, which is par for the course in this genre. Also, due to their generally low budgets, horror sequels are practically impervious to financial losses.

I expect to see about an equal number of R and PG-13-rated horror films in the coming years. These past several years have proved that the rating doesn’t inhibit a horror film’s box-office performance in any discernible way. One school of thought in recent years has been that the PG-13 rating is advantageous as it opens the door to youngsters, but 2017’s IT put the brakes on that myopic way of thinking by shattering a number of box office records.

Saturn Awards – Jason Blum – Courtesy of Danny Liao and LA Weekly

What the Future May Not Hold

An analysis of the recent box-office performance of horror also elucidates what isn’t working in the current marketplace. At this time, audiences don’t seem to have an appetite for extreme blood and gore. None of the top-grossing horror films in recent years have put much of an emphasis on blood and gore, so don’t expect to see too many films of that ilk in the near future.

Also, it seems that found footage has fallen out of favor in recent years. There hasn’t been one top-grossing found footage horror film since 2015. Clearly, audience fatigue began to set in after the deluge of found footage films produced in response to Paranormal Activity’s astounding success.

Finally, expect to see a reduction in the number of horror remakes that are produced in the next few years. The only true remake in the list (2015’s Poltergeist) wasn’t much of a success at the box office as it grossed $47 million against a $35 million budget (a definite loser once you factor in marketing costs). While some may consider It (2017) to be a remake of the miniseries, I think of the film as a literary adaptation.

Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn– Courtesy of Renassance Pictures

History Repeating

Audiences are fickle; what’s popular today, probably won’t be popular in a few years. While Blumhouse and other lower-budgeted franchise horror films currently rule the box office, I expect their success to be ephemeral. In a short time, the often bloodless Blumhouse films could be supplanted by gory horror films and sequels could fizzle out in favor of remakes.

All that is certain is that Hollywood will continue to live by the old stock market idiom “the trend is your friend.” Once the trend becomes their enemy, they will look for new friends, and this virtuous, vicious economic cycle will continue until the end of time.

Next. Rotten Picks: The spoiled apples of horror franchises. dark

Which types of horror films do you think we will see in the next few years? Please let us know in the comment section below.

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