Nosferatu has broken a major horror movie record by surpᴀssing Longlegs at the box office. The latter movie, which was directed by Osgood Perkins, is a smash hit serial killer thriller starring Maika Monroe and Nicolas Cage that grossed $127 million worldwide against a slim budget of less than $10 million after debuting on July 12, 2024. The Nosferatu release came much later, as the Robert Eggers remake of the iconic 1922 silent vampire film of the same name debuted on Christmas Day, becoming the highest-grossing new release over the holiday weekend.

Per Variety, as of Sunday morning, Nosferatu is projected to close out its third weekend in theaters with a 3-day domestic gross of $6.8 million in North America and $13.7 million internationally. This will bring its cumulative global box office total to $135 million, surpᴀssing Longlegs‘ worldwide gross by $8 million. This officially makes the Eggers movie the highest-grossing non-sequel, non-prequel horror movie of 2024, as it had already surpᴀssed other contenders including Exhuma ($93.9 million), The Substance ($79 million), Night Swim ($54.8 million), and Heretic ($51.9 million).

What This Means For Nosferatu

It Is One Of 2024’s Biggest Horror Hits

In addition to breaking this major record for the genre, the Nosferatu remake is now one of the highest-grossing horror movies of the year in general. At the time of writing, it is the fourth highest-grossing horror release of the year, and the sixth highest-grossing when counting movies where horror is a subgenre, namely the comedy-horror movies Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and Beetlejuice Beetlejuce, both of which are also sequels. Below, see a breakdown of every 2024 horror movie above Nosferatu on the overall global chart:

One area where Nosferatu so far can’t compare to Longlegs is its budget, however. The vampire movie cost a reported $50 million, meaning that its current gross is not even three times its budget, whereas the Nicolas Cage movie earned back more than 12 times what it cost. Nevertheless, the remake is still holding strong in the raw numbers and will most likely surge past Smile 2 before the end of the week, making it the third highest-grossing horror movie of the year.

Our Take On The Nosferatu Box Office Record

Its Success Makes Perfect Sense

The movie’s success likely comes from a variety of factors. The first would be word of mouth. While glowing Nosferatu reviews – which earned it a Certified Fresh score of 85% on Rotten Tomatoes – likely got many into theaters on its opening weekend, it was also well received by moviegoers, who have so far given it a 73% audience score on the same platform. The movie has also been a strong contender in the 2024-2025 awards season, with four Critics’ Choice nominations and a National Board of Review Cinematography award helping boost its profile.

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Source: Variety