Box office: Horror movies, Christian and secular alike, bump His Only Son from the top ten
Box office: Horror movies, Christian and secular alike, bump His Only Son from the top ten
Nefarious and The Pope's Exorcist were two of five new wide releases this week.
Another week, another Christian movie cracks the box-office top ten.
Nefarious, a psychological thriller about a demon-possessed death-row inmate, slid into 10th place with an estimated $1.3 million over the weekend. It was one of five new films in the top ten, and it was the only one playing in fewer than 1,200 theatres.
A few quick points about that:
Nefarious was written and directed by Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon, who previously directed the abortion drama Unplanned. The duo also co-wrote the “faith-based” hit God’s Not Dead and at least one of its sequels.1
Unplanned opened to $6.4 million in 1,059 theatres, while Nefarious is opening to $1.3 million in 933 theatres. Thus, Unplanned had an opening per-screen average of $6,026, while Nefarious has an estimated average of $1,425.
Unplanned grossed $19 million altogether. Nefarious will not do that.
Nefarious was rated R “for some disturbing violent content.” R ratings are pretty rare in the “faith-based” genre, so that might have limited the film’s appeal. Then again, Unplanned was also rated R, “for some disturbing/bloody images.”
Nefarious was one of four horror movies in this week’s top ten, and indeed it was one of two movies about demonic possession that opened this week, the other being The Pope’s Exorcist, which stars Russell Crowe as the late Fr Gabriele Amorth, a priest who was previously the subject of a documentary, The Devil and Father Amorth, directed by William Friedkin, of The Exorcist fame.
The Pope’s Exorcist opened at #2 with an estimated $9.2 million.
The other horror films this week were Renfield, a vampire movie that opened at #4 with an estimated $7.8 million, and Scream VI, a slasher sequel that landed at #9 in its sixth week with an estimated $1.4 million.
The rush of new movies meant that His Only Son, the Easter-themed movie about the binding of Isaac, got bounced out of the top ten in its third week.
That film, which lost almost half of its theatres from last week, grossed an estimated $518,971, to bring its total domestic gross after three weeks to $12.1 million.
A few quick data points about that:
This week’s gross is down 81.5% from last week, which is easily one of the steepest drops of any film from last week’s top ten. (Box Office Mojo does not yet have estimates this week for Creed III, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, or Paint, but of the others, only A Thousand and One had a steeper drop, at 85.8%.)
His Only Son was heavily promoted as an Easter film, and this is the first week after Easter, so does that account for the sharp drop at all?
It now looks unlikely that His Only Son will outgross The Chosen’s first two theatrical releases, each of which grossed over $13.7 million.
Also worth noting, perhaps—speaking of exorcism movies—Come Out in Jesus’ Name, a documentary about “the most controversial pastor in America” and his “demon-slaying” ministry, grossed $1.6 million on Monday and Tuesday.
The documentary ranked in the top five on both days.
The money the film made this week was in addition to the $973,795 that it grossed on March 13, when it was “followed by a live simulcast event where Pastor Locke and his fellow demon slayers . . . [led] a supernatural mass deliverance”.
The film has earned $2.5 million in total for the three days it was in theatres.
As for Jesus Revolution—remember that one?—the film is estimated to have grossed a mere $95,000 in this, its first weekend after being made available digitally.
Jesus Revolution has now grossed $51.98 million since opening in February.
Of the 21 “faith-based” films that have grossed over $20 million—see the chart below—Jesus Revolution is currently one of only four that made more than 30% of their total domestic gross in their first weekends.
That suggests it was one of the more “front-loaded” films of its type.
Then again, as I mentioned during the film’s second week, the stats for the opening weekend could have been inflated by a higher-than-usual number of preview screenings. Jesus Revolution is also the first major “faith-based” film to come out during the post-Covid era of shorter theatrical windows.
The other three films are Son of God (a re-edited version of an already widely seen TV show), God’s Not Dead 2 (a sequel), and Risen.
And now, a couple of updated charts.
First, here is how His Only Son currently ranks among the Bible films of the past 25 years in North America (this list includes films like The Shack and Three Thousand Years of Longing that don’t tell biblical stories but do feature biblical characters, as well as modernizations of biblical stories like The Song and Redeeming Love):
And here is how His Only Son ranks among those films globally, as far as I can tell:
And, second, Jesus Revolution has now earned $51.9 million since opening in February, which is enough to make it the 9th-highest-grossing “faith-based” film to date.
And that, I think, about covers it. More later, perhaps.
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April 17 update: The final numbers are in, and Nefarious basically hit its target, while His Only Son did slightly better than expected. Jesus Revolution was down at #22.
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Past posts on His Only Son and movies about Abraham:
‘God’s Stories #3: The Promise (Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar)’ (July 22, 2022)
‘Solomon and the Djinn: two movies’ (August 27, 2022)
‘The binding of Isaac, coming to theatres next month!’ (February 11, 2023)
‘Angel Studios launches new trailer, new theatrical division for His Only Son’ (March 16, 2023)
‘Interview: David Helling on directing His Only Son’ (March 27, 2023)
‘Abraham and the binding of Isaac at the movies’ (March 29, 2023)
‘A few brief thoughts about His Only Son’ (March 31, 2023)
‘Box office: His Only Son cracks the top 5, while Jesus Revolution slips out of the top 10’ (April 2, 2023)
‘Angel Studios raising funds for Jacob, the sequel to His Only Son’ (April 3, 2023)
‘His Only Son gets a new, Sarah-focused trailer going into its second weekend’ (April 6, 2023)
‘Box office: His Only Son slides to 6th place in its 2nd week’ (April 9, 2023)
Past posts on the Erwin brothers and Jesus Revolution:
‘Review: Moms’ Night Out (dir. Jon & Andrew Erwin, 2014)’ (May 21, 2014)
‘I Can Only Imagine and Steve McQueen: American Icon co-director Jon Erwin on rooting for the underdog and following your dreams’ (March 16, 2018)
‘A new Bible-movie trilogy is in the works from the makers of I Can Only Imagine and the studio behind The Shack’ (March 27, 2019)
‘From Jesus Christ to Jesus freak’ (September 2, 2022)
‘A new featurette gives us our first look at Jesus Revolution’ (October 8, 2022)
‘Hippies-for-Christ flick Jesus Revolution gets a trailer’ (October 22, 2022)
‘The Chosen’s successors: a new Left Behind movie and the Jesus Revolution?’ (November 22, 2022)
‘A few brief thoughts about Jesus Revolution’ (February 24, 2023)
‘Box office: Jesus Revolution is a “faith-based” hit’ (February 26, 2023)
‘Box office: Jesus Revolution earns another $8.65 million in its second week’ (March 5, 2023)
‘Box office: Jesus Revolution has a decent hold in its third week’ (March 12, 2023)
‘Box office: Jesus Revolution crosses $45 million in its fourth week’ (March 19, 2023)
‘Box office: Jesus Revolution hangs in there in its fifth week’ (March 26, 2023)
‘Box office: His Only Son cracks the top 5, while Jesus Revolution slips out of the top 10’ (April 2, 2023)
‘Box office: His Only Son slides to 6th place in its 2nd week’ (April 9, 2023)
Konzelman and Solomon both worked on the first two God’s Not Dead movies, and Solomon (but not Konzelman) was also involved with the fourth.