A24's Death Of A Unicorn Is A Box Office Disappointment, But We Need More Movies Like It

We are now one quarter of the way through 2025, and things are not looking great at the box office. As it stands, domestic ticket sales are pacing nearly 11% behind this same time in 2024, and 2024 was pacing pretty far behind 2023 at this point in the year thanks to the SAG and WGA strikes. Needless to say, things aren't looking great. Unfortunately, despite an audience-friendly premise and a star-studded cast, A24's "Death of a Unicorn" served as the latest disappointment this year. Yet, it's also a reminder that we need even more movies like this one.

Directed by Alex Scharfman, "Death of a Unicorn" opened to just $5.7 million domestically, putting it at number five on the charts. It opened behind Blumhouse's latest horror offering "The Woman in the Yard" ($9.4 million), despite playing on more screens. So yeah, it's not a great look. But A24 will probably be fine in the long run here, as the creature feature boasts a reported $15 million production budget.

Meanwhile, Jason Statham's "A Working Man" opened to a better-than-expected $15.2 million, giving it the number one spot on the charts, dethroning Disney's "Snow White" remake ($14.2 million). Therein lies the point: At this stage, it's tough to know for sure what audiences will or will not show up for. Horror can often be a reliable genre to bet on. But just because some of these movies don't work as well as a studio had hoped doesn't mean that they can abandon such pursuits. And this goes well beyond A24.

Five years ago, the pandemic shut down movie theaters for months on end, with Hollywood doubling down on streaming at an accelerated rate as studios were facing an uncertain future. Theaters did reopen in 2021, but unfortunately, the recovery has been much slower than anyone anticipated. There are a myriad of reasons for that, but a big one is that studios are simply releasing fewer movies in theaters than they were in 2019.

Studios have become pickier about what constitutes a theatrical release and what might be better suited to streaming — or what should be made at all. A24 is one of the few companies out there regularly releasing original projects into the marketplace. That's important, as Hollywood's reliance on franchises and IP is stronger than ever. The fact is we need movies like "Death of a Unicorn" more frequently, whether or not they succeed in the short run.

Hollywood needs theaters to survive. The industry needs revenue from the box office, particularly as cable TV continues to die. DVD is no longer the mighty moneymaker it once was. Streaming is only just now becoming profitable. Without theaters, things get dire in a hurry. Theaters can't survive while waiting for the next "Inside Out 2" every few months.

The only way to rebuild audience habits is to regularly release a wide array of movies that can please all sorts of audience members. Original horror movies? Check. Action movies? Check. Adult-focused dramas? Check. It can't all just be comic book movies and remakes of once-beloved favorites. Even a flop like "Mickey 17" had the right idea, it was just far too expensive to ever turn a profit.

"Death of a Unicorn" was met with mixed reviews out of SXSW and didn't quite catch on with general moviegoers, but it represents the type of thing Hollywood should absolutely be doing more of: Making movies with reasonable budgets, great casts, and original ideas, with exclusive theatrical releases. The hits don't come without the misses. It's just about managing the size of those misses in the meantime so that they're not ruinous.

Sure, maybe something like "Novocaine" doesn't totally pan out, but it will be fine in the end after VOD comes into play. Theaters need more swings like that, not fewer. It's becoming increasingly hard to predict where actual hits will arrive. Just look at "Conclave," not just one of the best movies of 2024, but a downright shocking hit with $112 million worldwide to its name. It would have been tough to predict that movie breaking out earlier in the year.

Sure, Hollywood needs franchise films to help ensure big hits will come. But "John Wick: Chapter 4" doesn't happen unless the original "John Wick" gets made in the first place. Maybe "A Working Man" can become the next "John Wick." In another timeline, "Death of a Unicorn 2" could have been a likely outcome. It didn't pan out this time, but rolling those dice is crucial to the survival of the industry. If anything, Hollywood at large needs to double down on this thinking, rather than back away from it even further. Making movies like this is a long-term investment in the future of a healthy theatrical marketplace.

We spoke more about this on today's episode of the /Film Daily podcast, which you can listen to here:

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"Death of a Unicorn" is in theaters now.