I’ve been keeping a close eye on “Nosferatu” at the box-office. The film already had a surprising $40M holiday opening, and its legs have been very good.
It’s not everyday that we get an auteur-driven movie making these kinds of numbers. Robert Eggers’ film racked up $3M last night, which is pretty damn good for a second Thursday. “Nosferatu” is now aiming for a very healthy $20M second weekend.
Maybe its success will get a few studio heads to wake up and realize that singular vision and artistry can still strive at the box-office, and I’m saying this despite my mixed feelings on the film. The strong reviews have certainly helped seal its fate, and there’s definitely a growing fanbase for Eggers’ brand of cinema.
One look at 2024’s top 20 highest-grossing films at the domestic box-office and you notice that only “Wicked” and “It Ends With Us” are non-IP, despite their being based on ultra popular source materials. It doesn’t need to be this way. Originals can and should still be able to make money. Hollywood just needs to stop being lazy by investing, and more importantly, believing in the product.
In most studio execs’ heads, only a select few filmmakers can drive a movie to box office glory in name alone; the usual suspects seem to be Christopher Nolan, Denis Villeneuve, James Cameron, Quentin Tarantino, and Steven Spielberg. I say, that’s total bollocks. There’s a hunger out there for auteur-driven films, but they just need to be marketed correctly and have people talking.
The marketing on “Nosferatu” has been great, kudos to Focus for the investment and time. They’re one of the few studios who “get” it. It does help that “Nosferatu” is a horror film and the genre has been absolutely booming at the box-office these last five or so years. What we’re seeing is a devoted legion of moviegoers who will go and watch almost any new horror movie that opens in theaters.
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Alfonso Cuaron, The Coen Brothers, and even Christopher Nolan all recently expressed interest in making a horror film. Hell, even Steven Soderbergh is about to release his first one (“Presence”) later this month.