It’s been a great summer for horror films with Universal/Blumhouse’s The Purge: Election Year hitting a franchise high of $79M stateside, and New Line/Warner Bros.’ Conjuring 2 crossing $300M worldwide and marking the third best domestic debut for a scary pic at $40.4M. Well, New Line and Warner Bros. have more to celebrate as David F. Sandberg’s Lights Out is turning on $100M-plus at the global box office. That’s a sweet take for a movie that cost $5M before P&A. Stateside, Lights Out is at $63.1M. James Wan, who directed, wrote and produced Conjuring 2, put his producer stamp on Lights Out, which for a horror film is like getting the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Producer Lawrence Grey shepherded Lights Out from Sandberg’s short to feature with the director intact.
Overseas, Lights Out counts $41.7M bolstered by top territories Mexico ($5M), Russia ($3.8M), Australia ($2.4M), Argentina ($2.3M), and India ($2.3M) [Territory figures are through last Sunday]. Brazil opened on Thursday, UK and Spain yesterday and France and Korea on Aug. 24.
The filmmakers’ next collaboration is Annabelle 2, set for release on May 19, 2017, with Sandberg directing and Wan producing.
In Lights Out, Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) learns that her young brother Martin (Gabriel Bateman) is experiencing the same unexplained terror she weathered when she lived at home, when the lights went out. A frightening entity with a mysterious attachment to their mother, Sophie (Maria Bello), has also reemerged. But this time, Rebecca plans to get closer to the truth.
