If you’re the type of film nerd who seeks out box office returns every Sunday, you know that Gil Keenan’s Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire was this weekend’s reigning champ, coming in above its projected $42M opening with a cool $45.2M. That’s about on par what the franchise’s previous entry, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, scored back in 2021. This wasn’t a terribly surprising outcome, but that’s the story most of this weekend’s box office reporting will be highlighting in its headlines.
The story we’ve got our eye on, on the other hand, involves Colin and Cameron Cairnes’ Late Night with the Devil, which landed in theaters courtesy the folks at IFC Films. Late Night had a helluva lot of buzz heading into its opening weekend (some of it, like the film’s 96% score on Rotten Tomatoes, was good buzz; some of it, like an ongoing controversy about the film’s decision to use AI for several of its interstitial onscreen images, was not), and a closer look at its box office take reveals something eyebrow-raising.
Take it away, Variety:
“On the independent scene, ‘Late Night With the Devil’ took sixth place and summoned $2.8 million from 1,034 venues, including (and you can’t make this up) $666,666 on Sunday. This marks the biggest opening weekend for its distributor IFC Films, overtaking 2022’s ‘Watcher’ with $826,775. The low-budget thriller stars David Dastmalchian as a late-night talk show host who keeps the cameras rolling during a live Satanic incident.”
Yes, Late Night with the Devil managed to walk away with $666,666 yesterday. Sunday. The Lord’s Day. How’s that for on the nose? Beyond that devilish figure, it’s worth pointing out that the AI controversy surrounding Late Night with the Devil seems to have done little to slow its roll: the film, produced for less than $2M, has already crossed that number and delivered IFC Films’ biggest opening weekend ever.
Elsewhere in the top ten, the Sydney Sweeney-starring Immaculate opened to $5.3M, providing further evidence that the Nunsploitation genre is alive and well (or maybe it’s just further proof of Sweeney’s ongoing domination of the industry; you make the call!). And, all in all, a pretty strong weekend for horror of all kinds at the box office. We love to see it, don’t we, folks?
