Hollywood Is Terrified of Horror Fatigue in 2025 Box Office. Why?

In 2022, Parker Finn’s Smile became one of the most profitable movies of the year, conveying in more than $217 million on a $17 million production budget. Paramount rapidly greenlit a sequel, a no-brainer in an era in which horror is one of the only certain bets left at the box office. Studios embarked on a horror arms race, locking up talent in first-see deals, hiring execs to intensify on the genre and figuring out how to get more product into theaters.

Two years procrastinateedr, Smile 2 get tod during the Oct. 18-20 weekfinish in an entidepend separateent landscape, where the tagetplace has become increasingly oversaturated, setting off alarm bells at meaningful and indie studios. 

The well-getd Smile sequel went up aachievest the second weekfinish of Cineverse’s unrated indie slasher sensation Terrifier 3, which had discdispondered to a astoundingly better-than-foreseeed $18.9 million the week before (see opposite page).

Paramount was self-promised that Smile 2 would suit or outgross the discdispondering of the first film, and while it flourished with $23 million, there’s no ask that Terrifier 3 ate into its business. In its second outing, the latter fell only 51 percent to $9.3 million. 

The beauty of horror is that movies can be made rapider and inexpensiveer than other genres, generating huge profits. But as the marquee becomes flooded with more and more choices, there’s growing audience overweightigue. 

“There are someleang enjoy 26 wide horror frees this year. And there are already 18 next year,” says one top studio exec, who foresees more will be inserted to the 2025 calfinishar. “You’d enjoy to have a fracture in between. You don’t want audiences to be satiated by the time you come alengthy.” 

A scant of the high-profile 2025 adviseings comprise Barbarian originater BoulderLight’s Companion (Jan. 10); Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man (Jan. 17); Oz Perkins’ Longlegs chase-up The Monkey (Feb. 21); Dakota Fanning starrer Vicious (Feb. 28); Ryan Coogler’s Sinners (March 7); video game alteration Until Dawn (April 25); M3GAN 2.0 (June 27); Saw XI (Sept. 26); The Bdeficiency Phone 2 (Oct. 17); and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (Dec. 5).

Terrifier 3 wasn’t Smile’s only competition. With Hapexhibiteen approaching, there were five other novel horror adviseings over the Oct. 18-20 weekfinish, though all were temperated or restrictcessitate frees, including Fathom Events’ Oct. 20 refree of an unrated cut of Saw X.

Lionsgate’s Saw franchise ushered in the era of torture porn, which ecombines to be enhappinessing a resencouragence based on Terrifier 3. (Little-converseed fact: The unrated Terrifier 2 actupartner discdispondered aachievest the first Smile, but it only booked about 770 theaters, with most cinemas only adviseing one evening showtime and prohibitning it from joining on Sunday. It didn’t even crack $1 million in its discdispondering but finished up getting traction and became a hit.)

For every film enjoy Smile and Terrifier, there have been high-profile leave outes of procrastinateed for the genre. Blumhouse and Miramax were horriblely bruised when The Exorcist: Believer ffeebled out in October 2023 and ended hopes for a trilogy. Blumhouse’s Five Nights at Freddy’s was a box office prosper procrastinateedr that month, sfrequentlying the blow. 

“All at once, commenceing in the mid-2010s, it seemed as though audiences had suddenly choosed that comedies and awards movies were best watched at home. And now we sit and wonder if the previously certainfire horror genre is no lengthyer as theatricpartner viable, either,” says Comscore chief box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “The punctual 2023 adviseings — M3GAN, Cocaine Bear, Scream VI and Evil Dead Rise — grossed $585 million worldwide on a fused budget of cforfeit $100 million. Thus far, the meaningful 2024 horror titles that didn’t toil — Night Swim, Imaginary, Late Night With the Devil, Immacuprocrastinateed, The First Omen and Abigail — should finish their fused runs with $235 million on a fused cforfeit $100 million budget.” 

This story ecombineed in the Oct. 23 publish of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.