5 Reasons Why Nosferatu Killed It At The Box Office

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With Christmas firmly in the rearview mirror, 2024 is nearly in the books. But this year's holiday frame was particularly good for the box office, as both "Sonic the Hedgehog 3" and "Mufasa: The Lion King" continued their big runs atop the charts. More importantly, several new releases also found their footing to help close out the year on a high note, with director Robert Eggers' "Nosferatu," in particular, having a stellar opening. The long-awaited new take on the vampire classic absolutely blew by expectations, delivering a big win for horror as the new year approaches.

"Nosferatu" pulled in $21.1 million over the weekend, but since the movie hit theaters on Wednesday to get in on the Christmas action, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Eggers' latest pulled in a whopping $40.3 million across the full holiday stretch, which was good enough for third on the charts. Even against a sizable $50 million budget, this one is off to a downright excellent start. It's one of the biggest debuts ever for a Focus Features release and it nearly doubled pre-release estimates, which had the vampire film pulling in a little more than $20 million over the Wednesday-to-Sunday stretch.

This development is all the more surprising since vampires have seemingly been poison for a film's commercial prospects in recent years. Universal saw both "Renfield" and "Last Voyage of the Demeter" flop in 2023. Meanwhile, the studio suffered another theatrical disappointment in the vampire sub-genre with "Abigail" earlier this year. Eggers, however, has managed to turn things around with his bold new take on the Dracula-inspired "Nosferatu" mythos.

So, what went right here? How did Eggers defy the odds to deliver what appears to be a modern vampire classic in the making? We're going to look at the biggest reasons why "Nosferatu" hit it big at the box office. Let's get into it.

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Not that it always sways audiences but, when it comes to a big studio horror movie, having critics on one's side is never, ever a bad thing. In the case of "Nosferatu," critics were very much on its side. As of this writing, the film holds a damn good 86% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes with well over 200 reviews counted. That generated great buzz in the movie's final marketing push. While the CinemaScore is a so-so B-, that's actually not bad for a horror film. As such, word of mouth should be decent as the weeks roll on. At the very least, we're not looking at some intensely divisive picture. People like what Eggers is cooking.

/Film's Chris Evangelista praised "Nosferatu" in his 9 out of 10 review, calling it "genuinely scary" and "one of the best movies of the year." So, it's not just that many critics like it. Those who do like it seem to downright love it. Again, that all helps fuel buzz not just for these opening weekend numbers, but also the holdover numbers in the weeks that follow, as well as for the international release. For the moment, the needle is pointing firmly in the right direction.

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Another thing that worked in this movie's favor is the overall landscape of horror in recent weeks. In short, there wasn't much of a landscape for horror at all. At the beginning of December, "Werewolves," "Y2K," "Get Away," and "Nightbitch" all hit theaters on the same day. All of them flopped as well, which pretty much left audiences without many options for the last few weeks.

We have to go back to A24's "Heretic" starring Hugh Grant in early November to find another mainstream genre box office hit. Even by early December, "Terrifier 3" had largely begun to run out of steam. All of this to say, horror-seeking audiences were downright ready — if not starved — for something new by the time "Nosferatu" reached theaters on Christmas Day. Even though it seemed like a not-so-obvious release date, Focus came out on the other side looking pretty smart.

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As mentioned previously, "Sonic 3" and "Mufasa" dominated over the five-day Christmas stretch with takes of $59.8 and $63.9 million, respectively. Other crowd-pleasers such as "Wicked" and "Moana 2" also continued their respective, excellent runs, while other newcomers such as A24's "Babygirl" and James Mangold's Bob Dylan biopic "A Complete Unknown" also did better than expected. This to say, there was an awful lot of competition in theaters over the holiday frame. The key thing here? None of them were horror movies and the majority of them were family-friendly offerings. That presented "Nosferatu" with a real opportunity to swoop in as counter-programming. It worked like gangbusters for Focus.

Yes, over Christmas family fare is going to do well as it gels with the spirit of the season. But not all moviegoers want something (all due respect) as soft as "Mufasa." For the thrill-seekers out there, "Nosferatu" was the most logical option. Much like how "Gladiator II" proved to be great counter-programming against "Wicked" in November, this proved to be a great genre option for a significant number of ticket buyers. Horror doesn't have to be restricted to summer or fall. Winter can be fruitful for these films as well, much in the same way that blockbusters don't have to be contained strictly to summer. Audiences want to be entertained year round, is another way to look at it. 

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Rather remarkably, "Nosferatu" now holds the record for the biggest opening for a horror movie over Christmas. The remarkable thing about it is that Robert Rodriguez's "The Faculty" ($11.6 million) held the record for 26 years after its release in 1998. No movie finds this level of success without a great marketing campaign. Focus, to its credit, gave the film one hell of a rollout.

The trailers for "Nosferatu" effectively sold scary, gothic horror vibes to the masses, while one of the biggest, boldest decisions on the studio's part was to hide Bill Skarsgård's Count Orlok entirely. It's not unlike how NEON withheld Nic Cage's full reveal from the "Longlegs" trailers. Similarly, it proved to stir curiosity in the minds of prospective audience members. What was the guy who played Pennywise in "It" going to bring to the party as one of the most famous vampires in horror history?

From assembling a killer cast to putting quite a few striking images out into the world in the weeks leading up to the release, everything went right here. Lisa Bunnell, head of distribution at Focus Features, explained how the unlikely choice worked in the studio's favor in an interview with Variety:

"When we dated the film for Christmas, people weren't like, 'Wow, that's an easy fit.' Exhibitors were taken aback that we were going to do this gothic story on Christmas Day. We were able to turn it into an event, and it worked tremendously. The movie itself delivers, and that's always the most important thing."

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Eggers made a big splash as a director with his debut feature "The Witch." That movie was a relatively sizable hit in its day given its tiny budget, and that bought Eggers a lot of credibility with hardcore horror fans. His followup, "The Lighthouse" was, similarly, a qualified hit against expectations, but it was far from mainstream. In 2022, Eggers tried to do something a bit more for the masses with "The Northman," but it bombed with a $12 million opening against a $90 million budget. It was a historical epic filtered through Eggers' unique vision that failed to resonate with the average viewer.

Cut to now and the success "Nosferatu" has enjoyed. It is, all at once, still very much an Eggers film while also being the first truly (relatively) mainstream movie the director has ever made. When horror works, it has a very loyal audience. Between casting Skarsgård as the title character and making a straight-up scary movie, "Nosferatu" was able to attract a very large audience. This was Eggers using all of the cache he had built up with cinephiles over the last decade and cashing in those chips to do something bigger in the genre space that had mass appeal. Safe to say, it worked out quite well for all involved.

"Nosferatu" is currently in theaters.