Hollywood Is Betting on Fear

Author: Editors Desk Source: WSJ:

March 25, 2023 at 07:47

Caitlin Stasey, who plays Laura Weaver in ‘Smile’ a 2022 horror film about a woman terrorized by an entity that takes the form of smiling people . PARAMOUNT PICTURES/PARAMOUNT +

A boom cycle in scary movies is here as studios seek to lure audiences back to theaters. Brace yourself for a new brand of horror.

Hollywood, once again, is resorting to scare tactics.

Producers and studio chiefs say we’re headed into a horror-movie boom, as they rush to sign big-ticket deals with top writers and directors in the genre and load their theatrical slates with scary thrillers.

Major studios including Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures’ New Line Cinema and Universal Pictures have recently poached A-list horror writers and directors and launched new divisions to bolster their spooky offerings.

Horror films—which are typically made with much lower production budgets than superhero epics or science-fiction sagas—have long operated on a boom-and-bust cycle. When a scary movie becomes an unlikely hit, studios will try to replicate that success by making a flurry of similar titles. Then comes the bust: Quality inevitably suffers and audiences get fatigued by how many mediocre scary movies are coming out, leading studios to pull back.

It happened after 2013’s “The Conjuring”—an exorcism thriller—sold $320 million in tickets globally. Then it happened again with “Get Out,” a supernatural commentary on racism, which did $256 million at the global box office in 2017, the same year that the demonic doll tale “Annabelle: Creation” did $307 million and creepy clown thriller “It” sold $705 million in tickets worldwide.

This year, horror is off to a strong start with “M3GAN,” about a murderous doll animated by artificial intelligence. It was produced by Blumhouse Productions, a pioneer in taking low-budget horror movies and developing them into profitable franchises, including “Paranormal Activity,” “Insidious,” and “The Purge,” and distributed by Universal Pictures.

The film has grossed $175 million worldwide since its Jan. 6 release, while “Scream VI,” produced by Spyglass and Paramount, debuted in March to a franchise-high $44.5 million in domestic ticket sales for its opening weekend. Blumhouse founder and chief executive Jason Blum and James Wan, a horror director whose credits include “M3GAN” and “The Conjuring,” both have first-look deals with Universal.

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