Universal’s latest monster movie, the blood-sucking “Renfield,” is sinking its teeth into the domestic box office with $900,000 from 2,750 theaters in Thursday previews. It expands to 3,375 locations on Friday.
This modern take on Dracula won’t be able to drive a stake through the heart of last week’s box office champion, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” The animated, family-friendly video game adaptation will get another high score at the box office this weekend, with an expected $58 million to $66 million in its sophomore outing.
“Renfield,” starring Nicolas Cage as Dracula and Nicholas Hoult as his lowly servant, is projected to make just $10 million in its opening weekend. Considering the horror-comedy carries a $65 million price tag, it’s not a great start to its run. It will also have to battle the fellow R-rated horror “The Pope’s Exorcist,” which is also on track to earn $10 million this weekend. The upside to the Sony horror movie, starring Russel Crowe as the Vatican’s lead exorcist, is that it only cost the company $18 million.
In recent years, Universal has been dusting the cobwebs off its vault of classic monster movies. “The Invisible Man,” starring Elisabeth Moss, was a low-budget hit in 2020, but Tom Cruise’s “The Mummy” reboot in 2017 previously had flopped and forced the company to rethink its horror strategy and interconnected Dark Universe. Just this week, it was reported that Radio Silence, the filmmaking team behind the successful “Scream” reboot and last month’s “Scream VI,” will tackle an upcoming secret monster movie for Universal.
In addition to “Renfield” and “The Pope’s Exorcist,” the horror genre is having a big weekend with the limited release of director Ari Aster’s “Beau If Afraid,” starring Joaquin Phoenix. It will open wide next week.
