It's midsummer, and "Latent 5: Red Door" has injected a new wave of terror into theaters around the world.
In North America, "Insidious 5: Red Door" (hereinafter referred to as "Insidious 5") earned US$33.01 million in its first weekend, setting the second highest opening score in the series and becoming the first horror film to win the championship in the summer file; overseas, "Insidious 5" also earned more than US$30 million. Compared with the ultra-low cost of US$16 million, it is expected to bring rich returns to Sony Pictures.
01 The premiere is popular and beats strong opponents. Rotten Tomatoes may drag down the market outlook. Subsequently, "Insidious 5" was rolled out to 3,188 theaters in North America, and the box office on the first day reached 15.2 million US dollars, driving the market to increase by more than 136%, and "Raiders of the Lost Ark 5: Spinner of Destiny" reached the top; then "Insidious 5" fell by 33.8% and 23.2% respectively, slipping to the second place in the ranking.
Counting the past three days, "Latent 5" earned a total of 33.01 million US dollars, and the single-house revenue exceeded 10,000 US dollars, still taking the top spot on the weekend list.
ranks second in the series, only inferior to 2013's "Latent 2" ($40.27 million), surpassing the opening performance of the last two sequels. In addition, "Insidious 2" just falls between "Scream 6" ($44.45 million) and "Artificial Killer" ($30.43 million), which is the second highest figure for horror films this year.
Judging from the word of mouth, the freshness of "Latent 5" on Rotten Tomatoes is as low as 38%, which is only slightly higher than that of "Latent 4: Undead" (33%). Film critics said that its ending is not as good as the previous series; at the same time, the popcorn index of "Latent 5" remains at 70%, with a score of 6.0 on IMDb (5.9 thousand reviews), which is not good news for its endurance.
"Insidious 5" was first directed by Patrick Wilson and continued to star in it. The two "horror film kings" Wen Ziren and Jason Bloom served as producers, and Ty Simpkins, Rose Byrne, Andrew Astor and Seam Abbas joined the cast; this time the story directly continues "Insidious 2". Together, Josh went deep behind the "red door" and faced the family's dark history.
In addition to "Insidious 5", "The Voice of Liberty" led by Jim Caviezel won the first single film on the day of its release, and it was firmly in the top three in the first weekend with US$19.68 million. The Horse Journey" will continue.
The R-rated comedy "Joyride", which features an Asian lineup, earned US$5.81 million in 2,820 theaters, which is only nearly 40% of the same period as "Don't Be Blame".
In addition, the previous week's champion "Raiders of the Lost Ark: Turn of Fortune" fell 55% to 27.42 million US dollars, with a cumulative box office of more than 122 million US dollars. Pixar animation "Crazy Elements" dropped slightly by 17% to 10.03 million US dollars, and the local market rose to more than 109 million US dollars, surpassing "The Flash", which was released at the same time. The two films showed diametrically opposite trends.
It is worth mentioning that "Spider-Man: Vertical and Horizontal Universe" approached 358 million US dollars six weeks after its release, replacing "Guardians of the Galaxy 3" as the summer file champion;
Benefited from the promotion of "Latent 5" and other films, the market in North America rose slightly by 1% to 129 million US dollars over the weekend, staying above 100 million US dollars for the 14th consecutive week. As of the 9th, the North American monthly box office has accumulated to 320 million US dollars, which has the opportunity to continue the momentum of year-on-year growth.
The horror genre continued to win, and low-cost films became "dark horses". This time, "Insidious 5" was released on a red plate at its premiere. It is the first horror film to win the championship after "Scream 6", and it will soon become the most popular work of the same genre this summer.
Even if it is not as good as "No" in July last year, "Latent 5" still ranks among the best in the series, and is expected to hit 70 million US dollars.
At the same time, "Latent 5" also showed a relatively stable market overseas. According to Comscore statistics, "Insidious 5" landed in 53 countries and regions in the first week, earning a total of 31.4 million US dollars outside North America, and more than 60 million US dollars in total with the mainland. Among them, "Latent 5" led the way in Mexico ($5.83 million), the Philippines ($3.7 million) and India ($1.5 million). Next, "Latent 5" will also enter markets such as Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Spain, and there is still a lot of room for growth in the global box office.
Previously, the four films in the "Insidious" series earned US$542 million worldwide, and after the release of "Insidious 5", they even broke through the 600 million mark. At the same time, Sony Pictures continues the strategy of "Small and Big". The production cost of "Latent 5" is about 16 million US dollars, which is a slight increase from the 10 million US dollars for the third and fourth films, but it is still controlled at a fairly reasonable level. Based on this estimate, "Latent 5" has recovered its initial investment only by relying on the first week's income, and the follow-up will bring continuous profits to the film studio.
Of course, "Latent 5" is not the only low-budget movie that has reaped excess returns. The aforementioned "Voice of Liberty" is believed to cost $14.5 million to produce, and the North American box office alone is enough to cover its net budget. In fact, after "Voice of Freedom" debuted on "Independence Day", it beat "Raiders of the Lost Ark 5: Wheel of Fortune" with unexpected results, making headlines in major entertainment media in one fell swoop. The themes conveyed by the film itself, the real story prototype characters and organizations behind it, and even the content of interviews with the leading actor Jim Caviezel have all become the focus of heated debate on the Internet.
As a conservative film project, the journey of "Voice of Freedom" on the big screen is also worth pondering. According to Dan Murrell, the filming of "Voice of Freedom" was completed as early as 2018. Originally, Fox also obtained the distribution rights of the film in some regions, but with the acquisition of its parent company by Disney, it stopped.
Until the beginning of this year, Angel Studios (Angel Studios) bought "Voice of Liberty" and made plans to release it again. It is worth mentioning that Angel Pictures specializes in religious projects. In March, "His Only Son" was released, and the North American theaters accumulated a total of 12.08 million US dollars.
Angel Pictures also adopted unconventional means to promote "Voice of Freedom", including raising 5 million US dollars for the film's publicity and distribution costs on the "crowdfunding" website, and promised to return 120% of the principal plus commission after the return of the investment. In addition, "Voice of Freedom" also offers a "pay-forward" option. Users can purchase a $15 package in advance, and this fee can be used by others to exchange for movie tickets. In the press release issued by Angel Films, "Voice of Liberty"'s revenue on "Independence Day" was divided into two parts, namely, direct box office of $11.56 million and "pay-forward" payments of $2.68 million. Through a variety of unusual methods, "Voice of Freedom" not only competes with giant special effects productions on the big screen, but also equals Hollywood blockbusters in terms of media volume. The follow-up impact on the industry deserves further observation.
