Late Night With The Devil Box Office Shatters Opening Weekend Record

Summary

• Late Night with the Devil
  is projected to earn $2.833 million during its domestic opening weekend.
• This is by far the largest debut ever for a movie put out by IFC Films.
• The movie has a near-perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes, which likely helped its financial prospects.

Late Night with the Devil has broken a box office record in its opening weekend. The new found footage horror movie was directed by Australian duo Cameron and Colin Cairnes. Set in a television studio in the 1970s, it stars David Dastmalchian as late night host Jack Delroy, whose attempt to channel the Devil on live television goes disastrously wrong.

Per Deadline, despite the Late Night with the Devil controversy involving the use of some AI imagery, the movie has performed extraordinarily well at the domestic box office. Its projected 3-day total is $2.833 million, which is by far the best opening weekend that the distributor IFC Films has ever had. The next highest-grossing openings for the company were Watcher ($862,000) and Skinamarink ($818,000).

Why is Late Night with the Devil Performing So Well?

The fact that Late Night with the Devil has performed so well at the box office is no small achievement. IFC is a company well known for putting out smaller, independent works, so it’s not surprising that their previous record high was below $1 million, but the fact that their newest release has more than tripled that opening weekend record is an outstanding result. The movie may prove to be an outlier among their catalog, as their upcoming movies including Humane, Turn Me On, and Ghostlight don’t currently seem to have the same level of cultural cachet.

Humane
, which is a dystopian thriller with ample political subtext set to premiere on April 26, stars Jay Baruchel and Emily Hampshire.

Late Night with the Devil reviews have been superb, which could be the primary factor that is driving audiences to theaters to see it. Although its Rotten Tomatoes score has settled at a Certified Fresh 96%, for quite some time the movie held a perfect 100% rating. With such strong reactions coming off of its SXSW premiere, the movie seems to have been able to build quite a bit of hype in the weeks leading up to its official theatrical release.

The Late Night with the Devil story also seems to be connecting with a wider audience. Religious titles have been succeeding at the box office throughout 2024, with projects like The Chosen, Cabrini, Ordinary Angels, and Immaculate all finding success in domestic theaters. While this movie has little in common with every title but the latter, a Sydney Sweeney nunsploitation horror movie, this may speak to a continued general interest in movies with religious overtones, even among enthusiasts of widely different genres.

Source: Deadline