There are just too many horror movies being released in the United States, according to a movie expert.
They Will Kill You, debuted with a disappointing US$5mil for Warner Bros over the weekend. The gory R-rated horror film stars Zazie Beetz as a woman who applies to be a maid at an apartment complex where she’s to become a sacrificial offering.
While the result was far from catastrophic for a movie with a modest US$20mil budget, it did suggest that theatres may have become oversaturated in horror.
David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm FranchiseRe, noted that there has been a new horror film released every weekend in the US for the last 14 weekends.
That included last week’s Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come (US$16.3mil in the US so far) and a second horror-comedy that also debuted this weekend. IFC’s Forbidden Fruits, about a coven of witches who work at a Texas mall, debuted with US$1.2mil in sales.
Despite the glut, Gross is forecasting horror films will account for about US$2.1bil in North American ticket revenue in 2026, down from US$2.75bil last year.
While horror remains popular with audiences and relatively cheap to produce, the genre may be approaching overkill. – AP
