The Exorcist: Believer's Box Office Raises Horrifying Questions About The Franchise's Future
One of the biggest horror movies of the year hit theaters over the weekend in the form of "The Exorcist: Believer." Yes, it was a week earlier than initially anticipated, as Universal and Blumhouse had to make room for Taylor Swift's forthcoming blockbuster concert film. But still, director David Gordon Green's revival of the iconic horror series, which is to be the beginning of a new trilogy, topped the charts in its debut. That's a good thing. Unfortunately though, Universal Pictures bet very big on this franchise, and that may come back to bite them.
Looking at "Believer" divorced of the larger picture, it performed pretty well in the early going. According to The Numbers, the film took in $27.2 million, easily taking the number one spot at the box office. That was slightly below industry projections, with opening predictions pegged at $30 million or more ahead of the weekend. Regardless, that's not a bad start for a movie with a $30 million production budget, particularly when looking at the $17.8 million that the film took in overseas in its debut. That makes for a $45 million global start. Making one and a half times your production budget (not counting marketing) come Monday morning would should be an absolute win for almost any movie.
The first problem is that the reaction to the film has been less than stellar thus far. Critics have been pretty unkind to the return of "The Exorcist," with the film carrying a very poor 22% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, to go with a mere 59% audience score. /Film's Witney Seibold gave it a 4.5 out of 10 in his official review. The film also carries a lackluster C CinemaScore, indicating that positive word of mouth in the coming weeks will be hard to come by.
One piece of a $400 million puzzle
That's a real problem for Universal given that the studio made a $400 million commitment for the aforementioned "Exorcist" trilogy that they are still on the hook for. In 2021, Universal made a mammoth deal with Morgan Creek Entertainment for the rights to make not one but three new movies in this franchise. Given that Green was the man behind the recent blockbuster "Halloween" trilogy, that may have seemed like a good idea at the time. But 2018's "Halloween" wasn't originally meant to be the start of a trilogy.
"Halloween Kills" and "Halloween Ends" only came about after the first installment became the highest-grossing slasher film in history ($255.4 million worldwide/$10 million budget). The cart was not put before the horse in that situation. "Halloween Kills" made $130.8 million worldwide, while "Halloween Ends" finished with $105.3 million. Both sequels also debuted on Peacock the same day they hit theaters, which surely impacted the box office. Either way, all three movies were big successes relative to their budgets. Universal, it seems, may have been a bit too bullish when it came to their hopes of repeating that success with "The Exorcist" franchise.
Sadly, it sounds like Universal and Blumhouse can't just back out of the deal if they get cold feet now. "Universal had to go buy the rights from another company, Morgan Creek Entertainment, and it had to promise to make a whole trilogy. Total price tag for the deal, including the movie budgets: $400 million," Fortune recently reported before adding, "Universal are on the hook for nine figures. And if the movie tanks, they still have to make two more." Those sequels now loom very large. The only good news is that $400 million figure apparently includes the budgets for the films. Even so, the pressure is now on when it comes to 2025's "The Exorcist: Deceiver."
Where does it go from here?
In fairness to Blumhouse, the studio delivered a movie with a reasonable budget that has, relative to that budget, done well enough at the box office in the early going. It's hard to fully fault Jason Blum and company. But Universal still has tough questions to answer in the face of this larger deal. Will Green direct "Deceiver?" Or will they radically change course and find a new filmmaker with an attempted course correction? My money would be on the second option.
To be more fair, Universal made this deal looking at the value the films could bring beyond the box office. They are absolutely hoping that "Believer" and its sequels will bring value to Peacock, a streaming service that needs to find a way to attract more subscribers given that it's losing billions annually right now. There are also Blu-ray sales, possible merchandising opportunities, and other ancillary revenue to account for. But well-liked movies tend to do better in the long run when it comes to ancillary revenue. To be blunt, this is not a roundly well-liked movie.
The biggest and most immediate challenge Universal and Blumhouse now face is figuring out how to make people care about two more sequels to a movie critics and audiences didn't like very much. Can they find a way to make a much better movie with "Deceiver" and distance it from its predecessor? It's a tall order, but one the studio needs to try and fill or that gargantuan investment in this trilogy could prove disastrous.
"The Exorcist: Believer" is in theaters now.