The serial killer thriller “Longlegs” is not only the biggest film of the year for distributor Neon, it’s the biggest film of the year for all independent film. The movie has surpassed $100 million at the global box office, with a cumulative gross of $72 million in North America. It’s also the top-grossing R-rated horror film of 2024 (although the top title for the R-rating goes to Marvel’s blockbuster “Deadpool & Wolverine”).
The movie, which stars Nicolas Cage as a serial killer in a “Silence of the Lambs”-like story from writer-director Osgood Perkins, far exceeded expectations when it opened to $22 million at the box office in July. The marketing campaign hid Cage’s transformation and played up the terror and mystique of the story to stellar results.
“Longlegs” became Neon’s highest-grossing film of all time after the Oscar-winning film “Parasite,” which earned $53.4M. It has surpassed A24’s second highest-grossing film of all time, “Civil War,” which is at $68.6M to date. In only its third week of release in the U.S., “Longlegs” became the highest-grossing indie horror film of the last 10 years, surpassing A24’s “Talk to Me” at $48M and “Insidious: Chapter 3” (2015) at $52.2M from then-Universal’s Focus.
Perkins is set to reunite with Neon, C2 and Black Bear for his next film, the Stephen King adaptation “The Monkey” starring Theo James, which will be released in February 2025. And “Longlegs” star Maika Monroe reunites with Neon for the “It Follows” sequel “They Follow.”
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