Longlegs established its director and author, Osgood Perkins, as an thrilling and influential voice throughout the horror style whereas upending conventional Hollywood advertising fashions with a guerrilla promotional marketing campaign that includes cipher codes and a creepy hotline. With the box-office success of Longlegs, there was a powerful sense of anticipation for Perkins’ newest movie, the comedy horror movie The Monkey, which was acquired for distribution previous to the theatrical launch of Longlegs.
Based mostly on Stephen King’s 1980 quick story of the identical title, The Monkey stars Theo James as twin brothers whose lives are regularly haunted by the enduring presence of a cursed toy monkey, which causes random horrific deaths across the brothers. The movie was co-produced by James Wan, Hollywood’s foremost creator of horror franchises based mostly on supernatural objects. Nonetheless, regardless of the seemingly commercially interesting teaming of King, Perkins, and Wan, together with a viral digital-focused advertising marketing campaign that generated over 100 million views for the movie’s trailer, The Monkey has been unable to climb out of the shadow of Longlegs on the field workplace, although it has nonetheless been a profitable outing.
‘The Monkey’ Has Vastly Beneath-Carried out ‘Longlegs’ on the Field Workplace
The Monkey
4
/5
- Launch Date
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February 19, 2025
- Runtime
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98 Minutes
- Director
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Osgood Perkins
- Writers
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Osgood Perkins
- Producers
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John Rickard, Natalia Safran, Ali Jazayeri, Chris Ferguson, Fred Berger, Giuliana Bertuzzi, James Wan, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones, John Friedberg, Jason Fabric, David Gendron, Michael Clear, Jesse Savath, Peter Luo, Dave Caplan
Amid a presently dismal yr for horror movies on the field workplace, with the disappointing box-office performances of Companion, Coronary heart Eyes, and Wolf Man, The Monkey was projected to gross roughly $17 million on the field workplace in its opening weekend of home launch, in comparison with the $22.4 million home opening weekend of Longlegs, which completed its theatrical run with a home gross of $74.3 million and worldwide complete of $126.9 million.
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Whereas The Monkey broke a report for 2025 horror movies by turning into the best-selling theatrical horror launch when it comes to advance ticket gross sales, it sadly fell wanting its projections with an opening-weekend home gross of $14.2 million, which put The Monkey in second place on the home field workplace, behind the holdover blockbuster superhero movie Captain America: Courageous New World. By way of its second weekend of launch, The Monkey, which carries an similar $10 million advertising and manufacturing value, has a home complete of roughly $24.6 million and a worldwide complete of simply over $28.5 million. When it comes to future sequels, there appears to be an viewers there, given the small funds with which the movie was made, although the diminishing field workplace returns could inform one other story.
Critics Like ‘The Monkey’ Extra Than Audiences
The box-office success of Longlegs is very spectacular given the comparatively tepid viewers response to the movie, which presently holds an 86% Rotten Tomatoes score and a 61% viewers rating. The divided response to Longlegs has been transferred to The Monkey, which holds a 78% Rotten Tomatoes score and a 59% viewers rating. Furthermore, the well-reviewed The Monkey has earned the identical mediocre C+ CinemaScore grade that Longlegs acquired.
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Nonetheless, whereas Longlegs carried out strongly on the field workplace over a number of weekends, the lackluster viewers polling is clearly mirrored within the box-office efficiency of The Monkey. Simply because the opening weekend box-office efficiency of the movie fell far wanting that of Longlegs, The Monkey skilled a pointy 55% drop in its second weekend of home launch, in comparison with a 46% second-weekend drop for Longlegs. Furthermore, the almost $6.4 million second-weekend home gross of The Monkey is lower than the almost $6.8 million third-weekend gross of Longlegs, which opened in almost 700 fewer theaters than The Monkey.
Will ‘The Monkey’ Launch a Horror Franchise?
Given James Wan’s propensity for constructing franchises by turning inanimate objects into iconic horror symbols, as seen with Wan’s The Conjuring Universe franchise and M3GAN, Wan’s attachment to The Monkey as a producer advised that it was clearly meant to be the primary installment in a deliberate sequence. Nonetheless, whereas The Monkey is destined to turn out to be solidly worthwhile, given the movie’s modest advertising and manufacturing prices, the movie’s comparatively disappointing box-office efficiency makes the potential for a franchise appear more and more unlikely, particularly given the palpable lack of public outcry for a sequel to The Monkey.
Certainly, whereas the box-office success of Longlegs makes the prospect of a sequel appear inevitable, with or with out Osgood Perkins as director, the theatrical launch of The Monkey has primarily served to generate enthusiasm for Perkins’ subsequent characteristic directorial outing, the upcoming horror movie Keeper, which is previewed within the post-credits scene of The Monkey. Furthermore, Perkins, the son of Psycho star Anthony Perkins, has expressed a disinterest in sequels in favor of specializing in authentic tasks. Whereas selling The Monkey, Perkins revealed that he’d written a characteristic script about present-day youngsters that he has described as being the wildest challenge he’s ever conceived of, a daring assertion for the director and author of Longlegs and The Monkey. The Monkey is in theaters now.