Why The Boogeyman's 'Disappointing' Box Office Is Actually Still A Win

As 2022 proved to us over and over again, horror is just about the most reliable thing at the box office right now — maybe even more than superhero movies in some ways. It's hard to have a flop as big as "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" when budgets are generally much, much lower. But they can't all be huge winners like "Smile" or "M3GAN." To that end, Disney's 20th Century Studios released "The Boogeyman" in theaters this past weekend, and the buzzy Stephen King adaptation had a middling debut amidst a sea of heavy competition. Even so, it would be hard to call this moderate disappointment a loss in any way.

Speaking of superheroes, "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" made a staggering $120.5 million in its debut, taking the lion's share of attention from moviegoers over the weekend. With "The Little Mermaid" also in its second weekend, "The Boogeyman" had to settle for third with a $12.3 million opening weekend. Coupled with the $7.7 million it earned overseas, director Rob Savage's latest debuted with $20 million globally against a budget in the $30 million range. We're firmly in not-great territory there, at least out of the gate. But there is reason to be optimistic.

For one thing, there are very few big horror movies hitting theaters over the summer and this one has been a pretty big crowd-pleaser (read our review here). So this absolutely has the opportunity to leg out in the coming weeks, even with big blockbusters like "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts" and "The Flash" on the way. Aside from the horror/comedy "The Blackening," we don't have another big studio horror movie until "Insidious: The Red Door" in the first week of July.

The other, more important element to consider here is that "The Boogeyman" was originally supposed to go directly to Hulu. This movie was originally not intended as a theatrical release. However, good test screenings and a push from Stephen King led Disney to pivot. As we've seen with studios like Warner Bros. Discovery and Amazon Studios, there is a big shift away from direct-to-streaming movies in favor of more theatrical releases. The reason? Put simply, a theatrical release — even if the movie doesn't turn a profit in theaters — helps generate more money down the line.

This is why Amazon gave Ben Affleck's "Air" a splashy theatrical run before putting it on Prime Video. It's also why Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has gone as far as to say the company does "not believe in streaming movies." In the case of "The Boogeyman," whatever the film makes in theaters is more than it would have made languishing on Hulu. Not only that, but Disney would have had to market the movie even if it were just a pure streaming play. So the marketing money spent on the theatrical release was, more or less, going to be spent anyway. It will, in the end, bring more attention to its inevitable Hulu release. And, if Disney decides to give it a physical release, it will probably help sell more Blu-rays. In short? More money at the end of the day.

"The Boogeyman" centers on a pair of sisters who are reeling from their mother's recent death when a supernatural entity that preys on vulnerable souls shows up to further complicate matters. The cast includes Sophie Thatcher ("Yellowjackets"), Chris Messina ("Birds of Prey"), Vivien Lyra Blair ("Obi-Wan Kenobi"), Marin Ireland ("The Umbrella Academy"), Madison Hu ("Bizaardvark"), LisaGay Hamilton ("Vice"), and David Dastmalchian ("Dune").

"The Boogeyman" is in theaters now.