While You Weren’t Watching, The Boogeyman Became A Box Office Horror Hit
It may feel like a somewhat distant memory now, but an adaptation of Stephen King’s short story “The Boogeyman” hit theaters in the beginning of June. It was pretty much buried right off the bat, as “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” sucked up most of the oxygen in the room. Other big movies such as “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” would overshadow it even further in the following weeks. Even so, while all of us weren’t paying any attention, the movie actually became a sneaky little hit for Disney’s 20th Century Studios.
According to The Numbers, “The Boogeyman” has earned $82.3 million worldwide, as of this writing. That includes $43.2 million from North American audiences, to go with $39.1 million from overseas. Given that the movie had a somewhat muted $12.3 million opening weekend domestically, this is pretty impressive. The film has legged out to multiply that number 3.5 times, all while pulling in solid numbers from international moviegoers as well.
Director Rob Savage’s adaptation of King’s work was produced for $35 million (not accounting for marketing), so it’s not exactly a home run for Disney. That said, it’s still a solid result and, moreover, let us not forget that this movie was originally going to debut directly on Hulu. So this is all money that the studio was really never going to get, had it simply pressed forward with a direct-to-streaming strategy. Plus, the theatrical run will only help draw more attention to the inevitable streaming release, which will help its prospects on Hulu in the end anyhow. A win-win.