Horror has been on an absolute hot streak at the box office over the last few months but all hot streaks must come to an end. In that spirit, director Justin Tipping’s football horror movie HIM hit theaters over the weekend and didn’t quite get the ball over the goal line, so to speak. It fell well short of expectations.
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Produced by modern horror master Jordan Peele, HIM opened to an estimated $13.5 million domestically. Heading into the weekend, expectations were closer to $20 million. That number was far out of reach. Meanwhile, the runaway hit anime Universal figured to have a pretty easy number one here, particularly with Peele’s name attached. Unfortunately, that’s not how things shook out.
Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle repeated at number one with $17.3 million. The weekend’s other newcomer, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, fared even worse with just $3.5 million.
HIM centers on Cameron Cade (Tyriq Withers), a star quarterback who suffers a potentially career-ending brain injury after being attacked by a fan. In the aftermath, legendary quarterback Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans) offers to train Cam at an isolated compound where he falls down a hellish rabbit hole. Julia Fox (Uncut Gems) also stars.
Likened to Friday Night Lights meets Nosferatu, the movie was met with largely negative reviews from the critical community. Audiences, unfortunately, seemed to agree. To make matters much worse, football movies don’t travel well, with HIM making a dismal $400,000 overseas in 25 different markets. Luckily, it carries a pretty reasonable $27 million production budget but now Universal is going to have to rely a great deal on VOD to make up the difference.
It didn’t help matters that this movie was facing competition in the genre space. The Conjuring: Last Rites continued its great run, adding another $12.9 million on its third weekend for a $400 million global total. It passed The Nun to become the biggest movie ever in The Conjuring Universe. Though not a big hit, Stephen King’s The Long Walk also added another $6.3 million in its second weekend. It's at $25.5 million globally.
Looking ahead, this upcoming weekend sees the release of One Battle After Another as well as The Strangers: Chapter 2. That’s more competition in the horror space, which is only going to make things harder for Universal and Tipping. Beyond that, the next truly big, studio horror movie that viewers have to look forward to is Black Phone 2 on October 17, just in time for Halloween.
HIM is in theaters now. For more, check out our interview with Weapons director Zach Cregger.
