Talk about having some bite. “Nosferatu” drove a stake through box office expectations, delivering a hauntingly good $21.1 million over the traditional weekend and $40.3 million since debuting on Christmas Day. Those receipts sent box office analysts everywhere reaching for the vampire puns (apologies, apologies) in an effort to explain the bloody fantastic results for “Nosferatu.”
After all, “Nosferatu” scored one of the year’s top openings from a specialty studio, joining A24’s dystopian cross-country adventure “Civil War” ($25 million), Neon’s thriller “Longlegs” ($22.4 million) and Cineverse’s ultra-gory slasher “Terrifier 3” ($18.9 million). Ticket sales also rank as the biggest Christmas Day launch and weekend haul for a genre film, overtaking the benchmark set in 1998 by Robert Rodriguez’s high school sci-fi story “The Faculty” with $4.4 million on opening day and $11.6 million over the traditional weekend. That there’s a 26-year gap between the previous record-holder is partially because horror isn’t synonymous with the holiday season.
“When we dated the film for Christmas, people weren’t like, ‘Wow, that’s an easy fit.’ Exhibitors were taken aback that we were going to do this gothic story on Christmas Day,” says Lisa Bunnell, head of distribution at Focus Features, which backed the film. “We were able to turn it into an event, and it worked tremendously. The movie itself delivers, and that’s always the most important thing.”
Heading into the extended Yuletide frame, “Nosferatu” was projected to open to $25 million from 2,992 North American theaters. Box office tracking isn’t an exact science, but projectionists have a better barometer of how a film might perform because patrons these days tend to buy tickets online in advance to reserve their ideal seat, be it on the aisle or dead center. Yet in this case, Focus Features reported that 40% of opening weekend crowds purchased their tickets the day before they saw the movie. While it’s not unusual for the holiday period, a time in which many people aren’t working and plans can come together at the last minute, it helps to explain why the well-reviewed “Nosferatu” nearly doubled pre-release expectations.
There’s also Robert Eggers, the film’s writer, co-producer and director, who has established a reputation for making haunting, atmospheric, richly cinematic films such as 2022’s “The Northman,” 2019’s “The Lighthouse” and 2015’s “The Witch” that defy conventions. His unique style and attention to detail (Eggers is a former production designer) has left him with a passionate following that made “Nosferatu” an event among the cinephile set. The long-in-the-works remake of the gothic tale, about a terrifying vampire (Bill Skarsgård) who stalks a haunted young woman (Lily-Rose Depp), has been a passion project for Eggers. He first announced plans to make the movie back in 2017, which at one point it was set to star Harry Styles as Thomas Hutter, the role that eventually went to Nicholas Hoult.
“‘Nosferatu’ isn’t your typical horror movie. It’s elevated, from an auteur director, and fits into the awards conversation for cinematography and costumes,” says Bunnell. “All those things made it unique.”
Another specialty release, Searchlight’s Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” also scored in its Christmas debut with $11.6 million over the weekend and a better-than-expected $23.2 million over its first five days. These successes with seemingly unconventional release dates are signaling there’s room for alternative fare amid the crush of family films, like “Mufasa: The Lion King,” “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” and “Wicked,” that typically dominate around the holidays.
“There’s always a natural inclination to release family films at Christmas because that works. You need that,” Bunnell says. “Trying to do something different with ‘Nosferatu,’ a hard R-rated movie, was reacting to the post-COVID [trend] that younger males have been the biggest demo that’s back to theaters.”
Lifted heavily from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the story been adapted for the big screen in F. W. Murnau’s 1922 silent film and Werner Herzog’s 1979 “Nosferatu the Vampyre,” which inspired Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” Yet the re-imagining of the oft-told cinematic story appeared to feel entirely new to the TikTok generation. As the studio predicted, younger males fueled the first weekend of “Nosferatu,” with exit polls revealing a notable 65% of audiences were between the ages of 18-34 and 54% identified as male.
“It’s a remake of the 1922 German Dracula classic, but for young horror fans, the story is fresh,” says said David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. “This picture has the horror crowd to itself through the remainder of the holidays.”
Given the rave reviews, strong word-of-mouth — “Nosferatu” holds a solid 86% on Rotten Tomatoes with critics praising the visual aesthetic and performances of its cast, while audiences graded the film a “B-” on CinemaScore, which doesn’t sound promising but happens to be typical for the horror genre — and limited competition, the film looks to have box office staying power to fuel a merry theatrical run. That’s encouraging because the movie carries a $50 million budget, a hefty price tag for an elevated horror picture.
“The unconventional Christmas Day release date made ‘Nosferatu’ an event picture in the eyes of moviegoers,” says senior Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “The incredible success reflects the desire by fans of the horror genre to have something offbeat and edgy that, while not original in its conceit, is truly original in its execution. Of course, critical raves and awards buzz don’t hurt either.”