How Neon's Longlegs Scored One Of The Most Impressive Indie Box Office Openings Of The Century

It is not an exaggeration to say that Neon's buzzy horror flick "Longlegs" has instantly become one of the biggest box office surprises of the year. It simply cannot be overstated just how shocking it is that this particular movie did what it did in its first weekend in theaters. For a studio that has only ever had five movies make more than $10 million domestically at the box office during the entirety of their theatrical runs, a debut north of $20 million on opening weekend is downright staggering. Yet, that's precisely what happened.

Hailing from director Oz Perkins, "Longlegs" pulled in $22.6 million this past weekend domestically, absolutely obliterating even the most optimistic projections. It even blew past Apple and Sony's much flashier "Fly Me to the Moon," which opened to $10 million against a $100 million budget. To be perfectly clear, even if "Longlegs" had made one third of what it made, we would still be talking about it as a success. Now? We're talking about one of the most impressive openings for an indie movie — regardless of genre — of the last decade. It's that impressive. The film's performance only gets more jaw-dropping the more you look at it, and that's precisely what we're here to do.

So what went right for Neon's runaway horror hit? How did Nicolas Cage and Maika Monroe become this summer's hottest horror duo? We're going to look at the five biggest reasons that "Longlegs" found such unlikely breakout success at the box office, from glowing reviews to a marketing campaign that will be talked about for years to come. Let's get into it.

Horror is one of the few genres that can churn out a hit against largely negative reviews. Just look at the ridiculous success of "Five Nights at Freddy's" last year, earning nearly $300 million worldwide. The intended audience for that film didn't care one bit what critics had to say. A film like "Longlegs" doesn't have a built-in audience, as it's an original horror movie coming from an indie studio. Reviews can be one of the biggest tools to help get the word out, and that's precisely what happened here.

Early reviews for Perkins' crime thriller about an FBI agent trying to track down a serial killer were downright effusive, with /Film's Bill Bria giving "Longlegs" a perfect 10 out of 10 in his official review. While the perfect Rotten Tomatoes score didn't hold out as opening weekend approached, that early buzz cut through the noise. The film still holds a very respectable 86% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience score is at just 63%, and the CinemaScore is pretty low at C+. Word of mouth might not be great, but in the early going, that whole "you must see it to believe it" buzz made a serious impact. The people that loved this movie loved it enough to shout it from the rooftops. That matters.

It's always worth pointing out when a studio spends reasonably on a film, which helps set the whole venture up for success. Neon is only handling distribution of "Longlegs" in the U.S., but the film's total budget is said to be under $10 million. That doesn't account for marketing, but the studio was also thrifty in that department, relatively speaking. That means the movie will be in profits very soon, long before it ever hits VOD, Blu-ray, and not even accounting for eventual overseas ticket sales. That budget set this film up for success even if the opening weekend hadn't been so impressive.

For what it's worth, "Longlegs" shattered box office records for Neon, becoming by far the studio's biggest opening weekend in history. It's already above the entire domestic total of Michael Mann's "Ferrari" ($18.5 million domestic) to become the studio's third-biggest title ever in North America behind just "I, Tonya" ($30 million), and "Parasite" ($53.3 million). It's very likely that, when all's said and done, this horror flick will be at the very top of that list. That relatively small budget is going to make it so everyone comes out much further ahead in the end.

To say that Neon pulled off an incredible marketing campaign would be a dramatic understatement. It's a bit simplistic to say that any movie that does well at the box office surely had an effective marketing strategy. But in the pandemic era, it's been especially challenging to get audiences to turn up for original films. Yes, horror has been one of the few exceptions to that rule, but we've had plenty of disappointments in that realm already in 2024, such as "The Watchers," "Imaginary," and "Lisa Frankenstein." So the fact that the studio was so effectively able to convince audiences to turn up for this one with a clever, cost-effective campaign is truly worth reflecting on.

From its many cryptic teasers to taking a "less is more" approach, the "Longlegs" marking strategy executed absolutely everything right. Neon exercised a lot of restraining by not over-explaining what the movie was about. Instead, they leaned into the intrigue of it all, along with some truly gripping imagery. They never revealed Cage's character in his entirety, which was a big gamble — albeit one that worked. They did, however, lean into how terrifying the reveal was, releasing a brilliant teaser trailer tracking Monroe's heartbeat the first time she actually saw Cage in character. That stuff got general audiences on board in a big way. Credit where credit is due.

Speaking of Nic Cage, there is no denying that his involvement was a factor here. While the Oscar-winning actor hasn't had a mainstream hit in quite some time, he has been doing a lot of work to build back up his good name after a decade of direct-to-video schlock. More to the point, horror films have allowed Cage to flex his acting muscles in particularly interesting ways in recent years, from the unexpected hit that was "Mandy" to his truly wild turn as Dracula in last year's "Renfield." While that movie was a major disappointment at the box office, I would argue that a large percentage of the people who did see "Renfield" largely did so for the promise of Cage as Dracula.

Those performances, coupled with movies like "Pig," have changed the narrative for Cage. There is now a strong chance then when you see a Nicolas Cage movie, you could be in for something special. "Longlegs" promised something special from one of cinema's most unpredictable performers, and Neon showed us very little of what we were going to get. That pure intrigue of getting to see Cage let off the leash on an R-rated, billed-as-truly-terrifying genre picture was clearly enough to get a lot of people off the couch.

The first half of 2024 was not nearly as kind to horror as 2022 and 2023 were. Several originals failed to live up to expectations, with indies such as "Immaculate" and "Late Night with the Devil" doing well against muted expectations. Similarly, A24's "MaXXXine" sent the "X" trilogy off on a high note recently with a $6.7 million opening, but even that was only a relative success. $22.6 million for an R-rated original — particularly an indie like "Longlegs" — is an unqualified, massive success. It's hard not to think that the lack of original mainstream breakouts this year contributed to demand for something worth seeing.

So many of the other big horror movies that hit theaters this year were met with mixed-to-bad reviews. They couldn't catch on with mainstream audiences. "Longlegs" had the reviews, the marketing, and the hook of being original. After a bunch of sequels, spin-offs, and franchise fare, that probably felt a little special to certain moviegoers. That's why the movie averaged around $9,000 per screen playing on just over 2,500 screens, compared to more than 4,400 screens "Despicable Me 4" is currently playing on. Demand was downright feverish.

"Longlegs" had a better opening weekend than any A24 horror movie in history, far eclipsing the debuts of the likes of "Talk to Me" and "Hereditary." It is the biggest opening for any R-rated horror movie since "The Nun 2" in September 2023. It's a big damn deal, and it proved to be the exact right movie at the exact right time.

"Longlegs" is in theaters now, and we spoke about its remarkable box office performance on today's episode of the /Film Daily podcast:

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