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Source: Gizmodo
For most major studios, the most desirable position on the box office charts is the top spot, that which shows that their most recent cinematic release is the most financially lucrative to come out that weekend. An opening at #1 may indicate that the film is bound for success as people from all over line up to see it, while opening any lower on the chart may indicate the opposite and suggest the possibility of the film ultimately bombing. Of course, being at the top of the box office (or not) is by itself not an immediate indicator of success; sometimes, a #1 opener can still have a less than satisfactory gross, whereas a film that opens lower can still develop legs and remain in place even as more releases compete for screens. In addition to all that, not all studios expect their films to rank that highly whenever they send them to theaters; while a major studio like Disney or Universal will do everything in their power to ensure that their releases earn as much as possible, smaller studios that focus on independent fare are usually content with having smaller openings. These are the likes of A24 and Neon, studios that don’t spend nearly as much on the production and distribution of films as their blockbuster-making counterparts and can thus be more accepting of opening weekend grosses that don’t even reach the tens of millions. With that said, if a film of theirs is able to surpass even the highest of expectations and take in more than anyone had anticipated, most people in the industry are likely to take notice. That’s exactly what’s happened this most recent weekend, as there’s been an independent release that, although it did not claim the top spot at the box office, still performed better than most would assume and even earned its distributor its biggest opening weekend to date. The film in question: the Neon-distributed Osgood Perkins-directed horror feature “Longlegs”.
Going into this weekend, most were expecting last weekend’s box office champion, Universal’s animated family film “Despicable Me 4”, to remain in the #1 position after opening with a fairly impressive Fourth of July weekend gross just a week prior. Sure enough, that was indeed what happened, with the film raking in roughly $44.7 million over the three-day period. It was the #2 spot, however, that caught most analysts and industry professionals off guard, as “Longlegs”, which cost less than $10 million to produce and only slightly more to market, exceeded most predictions (many of them figuring the film would make anywhere between $7-9 million throughout the weekend) and instead ended up earning around $22.6 million. There are quite a few reasons why this is so astounding: this is not only the biggest opening weekend for Neon in the entirety of its so-far seven years of existence, but it’s also the biggest opening weekend for any original horror film released so far this year. Not only that, but it’s a major high point for independent cinema in general; in fact, no other independently released horror film has been able to earn so much during its opening weekend.
To further demonstrate how unprecedented the success of “Longlegs” is so far, one needs to look no further than the other big release of the weekend, Sony and Apple’s period romantic comedy “Fly Me to the Moon”. Conventional wisdom would normally dictate that this film would be the kind to pull in respectable numbers at the box office; its premise about two people involved in the 1969 Moon landing is familiar and appealing to most of the general public, its leads Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum are fairly recognizable film stars, and the $100 million budget suggests that the studios involved in its making are confident that it would be, if not the biggest film of the year, one that audiences would be at least somewhat eager to see. In actuality though, despite it supposedly being the more safely marketable of the major films released this past weekend, “Fly Me to the Moon” only made it as high as the #5 spot on the box office charts, only earning around $10 million throughout the three-day period and even falling behind weeks-old holdovers like “Inside Out 2” and “A Quiet Place: Day One”. In short, the small-scale horror feature that only cost a fraction of what goes into the average Hollywood blockbuster came out well ahead of the actual Hollywood blockbuster that came out at the exact same time.
How was this possible? For one thing, even if Neon only spent so much to market “Longlegs”, they were able to do so in an incredibly clever manner. By placing the film’s trailer in front of many of the big releases that had come out in the weeks prior, and also by creating a sense of mystery in said trailer by limiting how much information they revealed (but still showing just enough to get potential viewers interested), Neon developed a near-perfect strategy that enabled them to advertise the film in the most effective way possible, with many comparing the film’s marketing campaign to another surprise horror hit, 1999’s “The Blair Witch Project”. Accordng to Neon distribution head Elissa Federoff, much of the campaign’s success can be attributed to how much creativity and imagination was put into it, claiming that they “built a movement around this film… when audiences can tell that it will be original and something they haven’t seen before, they’ll rally behind it.”
Second, not only did the film look good to most audiences, but those who saw it thought that it lived up to the hype. Reception from critics is almost overwhelmingly positive, with Rotten Tomatoes giving “Longlegs” an 86% approval rating and citing its “disquieting mood” and “a nightmarishly gonzo performance by [one of its lead actors] Nicholas Cage” as among the main reasons why critics have largely taken a liking to the film. General audiences are admittedly a little more mixed, with those polled by CinemaScore giving the film an average C+ rating, but considering that most horror films tend to receive ratings that low, word of mouth may prove stronger in the coming weeks than this rating suggests.
Of course, there’s plenty of competition that “Longlegs” will have to contend with. On top of the films that are also currently playing in theaters, the coming weeks will see the likes of “Twisters” and “Deadpool & Wolverine” take over the majority of screens, many of them almost guaranteed to make far more than this much-smaller horror film ever could. Then again, if its performance so far is any proof, perhaps “Longlegs” will continue to build an audience and earn its place as one of the breakout hits of this most recent summer.
