When it comes to box office returns for horror films this year, the releases have been relatively “quiet” at the box office, until Paramount’s A Quiet Place was released this weekend. According to preliminary reports, A Quiet Place will win this weekend’s box office with $50.4 million, making it the second highest opening so far this year, behind only Black Panther.
Unlike last year, which saw Split and Get Out dominate the winter box office frame, no horror film has been able to capture the attention of audiences in a similar fashion. Although profitable, many of the horror films (most notably Winchester, Strangers: Prey at Night, and Unsane with $25, $24, and $8 million respectively) under performed, with the exception of Insidious: The Last Key surprising everyone with a $67 million dollar take and an additional $100 million overseas. A Quite Place is poised to do much better however, taking in almost 75% of Insidious’ domestic gross in its first weekend alone.
Due to the muted response that audiences had to the other horror fare of the season, A Quiet Place was set up to do well at the box office, especially with a 97% score on Rotten Tomatoes and a PG-13 rating which always does well to attract teen audiences, the bread and butter of horror marketing.
A Quiet Place should do well in coming weeks, although the summer season will be in full swing very shortly with the opening of Avengers: Infinity War on April 26. As far as horror competition, Blumhouse may be thinking they lost a dare when their Truth or Dare has to go up against the film next week and David Tennant’s Bad Samaritan doesn’t open until May 4.
Stay tuned for the HNN review of A Quiet Place and more box office reports and our Summer Horror Movie Preview coming soon!
