Last weekend, turned out to be much larger than everyone expected at the box office. “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” paved the way with a record opening of $ 70 million. Everything else struck for second place. Well, technically third, since “The Conjuring: Last Rites” (25.6 million dollars) landed in second place after its own massive opening last week. In the case of “The Long Walk”, it was a question of having to settle for a fairly distant fourth place, although it is not as bad as it may seem on the surface.
“The Long Walk” by Lionsgate, which is based on Stephen King’s book of the same name, opened $ 11.7 million at the national level. He also finished behind “Downton Abbey: The Grand Final” ($ 18.1 million), which was certainly for a very different crowd. In any case, it seems to be a disappointing result on the surface. But diving deeper into the figures, it is one of those “good enough” situations that we could really use more on the modern market.
Directed by Francis Lawrence, of the reputation of “The Hunger Games”, this King adaptation includes a very modest budget of only $ 20 million before marketing. So, although an opening of less than $ 12 million is not exactly huge, it is good for a very budgetary film in a responsible manner like this. This also helps that “the long walk” has so far met stellar criticism, which can help him in the coming weeks. There are also brushes abroad, which have not yet been recorded, to be considered.
The film takes place in a dystopian version of the United States where a boy of each state is selected to participate in an annual competition. The winner will be awarded everything he wants. To win, they have to walk at a rate of three miles per hour without stopping. Falling below this speed, you get a warning. Get three warnings, and you came out – constantly shot in the head by the military envoy traveling with the group. The cast includes Cooper Hoffman (“Saturday Night”), David Jonsson (“Alien: Romulus”) and Mark Hamill (“Star Wars”).
The long march was a low -risk perspective and with a strong reward
In terms of comparisons, it was not far from “The Boogeyman” of 2023, which led to $ 82.3 million after opening $ 12.3 million that summer. Depending on the way things shake, there is still a lot of hope that it could reach more than $ 50 million worldwide, which would probably be enough to make a profit.
Lionsgate was extremely economical here, and that’s the key. If this film had cost $ 50 million, we would have a very different conversation on the way it is disappointing that a film as acclaimed is ignored by the public. Could it be well if more people appeared for what is now classified as the film Stephen King the best rated of all time? Of course, but it is a dark story that would never have had the same mass attraction as something like “IT”, for example.
It is a project that has been in and out of development for decades, with various filmmakers who come and go. The fact that Lawrence and Lionsgate finally made him do it at all does not hold anything on a minor miracle. Whether it’s a very good film, according to most accounts, is also great. Between VOD, streaming, box office abroad and possible Blu-ray / DVD sales, it will be fine. He will find his audience over time and he will make money. It will not be a great success, but everything should not be.
The box office is still struggling to recover from the pandemic. One thing that helps is to have a higher volume of products available in theaters. Having low-risk reward films and at low risk reasonably like this in theaters more regularly as a counter-programming is something that we could use more. A modest blow, in the end, is always a success – money is money, after all – and it can easily become a modest success. It can and should be more frequently sufficient than it is now, and we hope that other studios pay attention.
“The Long Walk” is now in theaters.
