Blumhouse Productions’ highly talked about Black Christmas is a major upcoming release, but what was the overall budget?
Directed by Sophia Takal and written by Takal and April Wolfe, the film is the second remake of the 1974 Black Christmas, which was remade for the first time in 2006. Given Blumhouse’s success with slashers marketed toward the young adult demographic, the forecast for Black Christmas’ opening weekend seems promising, with its prediction of $10-12 million. This is an excellent start, given the film’s $5 million overall budget. The number might seem low, but the Christmas holiday is known for having hit-or-miss weekends for films that would typically see incredible success. However, comparatively, it’s a strong estimate. Black Christmas was smart to choose its calendar date, given the significance of Fridays that fall on the 13th of any particular month to horror fans. It does have some competition with Jumanji: The Next Level, Bombshell, and Richard Jewell sharing the weekend, but they shouldn’t be apt to poach too many people from the film’s target demographic.
The Black Christmas franchise on the whole has been moderately successful, with the original 1974 film turning a $620,000 budget into right around $4 million international gross. Given the time lapse, an adjustment for inflation using the U.S. Inflation Calculator, this would equate to an approximate $3.2 million budget and a $21 million international gross. 1974’s Black Christmas premiered close to Christmas as well, but not too close; it was a Canadian-made slasher, but premiered in the United States on December 20, 1974. The 2006 remake had a significant decline in success, financially and through critical and audience reviews. 2006’s Black Christmas opened on December 25th, which resulted in a significant amount of backlash from various Christian groups who protested the film. Its $9 million budget saw an abysmal $3.3 million opening weekend. The choice to release on Christmas was made by distributing company, Dimension Films, who saw the success of another horror film out of Australia, Wolf Creek, which took the same release a year prior and saw a $2.8 million opening day.
Blumhouse could be the magical ingredient and the right stuff, as it has seen an extraordinary amount of success with other PG-13 horror, which is typically scoffed at by fans, in the past. Happy Death Day (2017) turned its $4.8 million budget into a massive $26 million opening weekend, beating out the highly-anticipated Blade Runner 2049, who had an extremely high budget and only managed to rake in $15.1 million during its opening weekend. Even Countdown, which got less than stellar reviews, managed to pull a $9 million opening weekend when it was only forecast to do $6 million. Its budget was $6.5 million, so they’re comparable, with Black Christmas having the edge due to timing, being part of a known franchise, and having a smart release date. Beyond that, Christmas horror tends to do pretty well with audiences. Ultimately, time will tell as to the trajectory of its financial success, but Black Christmas has been picking up momentum and word of mouth for months, though partially due to controversial opinions on politics and feminism in horror, which could either help or hinder it in the long-run.
Next: Best Christmas Horror Movies
- Black Christmas Release Date: 2019-12-13
