Longlegs kills it with nearly $3 million in Thursday previews

The mysterious Nicolas Cage serial killer film piles cash along with the bodies as it sets a record showing for the boutique studio, NEON.

Osgood Perkins continues to be a talent to watch as he follows up films like The Blackcoat’s Daughter and Gretel & Hansel with the highly-praised Longlegs. The marketing for the film has been incredibly intriguing and audiences couldn’t turn away as they flock to Thursday night showings. In the review from our own Chris Bumbray, the film certainly made an impression as he says, “Once the credits rolled, I found myself surprisingly shaken up by what I’d just seen, and it’s a film I’ll need to chew on in the coming weeks. Expect this one to make major waves among horror fans when it opens on July 12th. Will it be considered a new classic? Time will tell, but for me, this was a pretty dazzling piece of work.”

According to Deadline, the Maika Monroe/Nicolas Cage serial killer film set a record for the NEON studio with early Thursday preview showings, which pulled in almost $3 million at the box office. The studio’s biggest weekend opening to date, which belonged to another moody, atmospheric film, Immaculate with Sydney Sweeney, ran away with $5.3 million after Thursday previews didn’t even break the $1 million mark. Longlegs has to contend with lighter films like Inside Out 2 and the newly released comedy Fly Me to the Moon, and while the buzz is taking it far, the film that earns its R-rating certainly has an uphill battle to win the weekend.

As for Fly Me to the Moon, it’s actually an Apple Studios movie, and audiences are getting savvier over the fact that a movie like this will be streaming within weeks on AppleTV+. Those glorified streaming films don’t always pay off at the box office, with Argylle another recent flop.

Deadline also reports that Longlegs is staging an interesting promotional Friday night premiere stunt in New York as NEON partners with Alamo Drafthouse for a screening exclusively for teens without their parents and the chaperones will be dressed up as bloody nuns. The mysterious horror film is also a critical darling with Rotten Tomatoes showcasing a certified fresh 92% for the film.

About the Author

E.J. is a News Editor at JoBlo, as well as a Video Editor, Writer, and Narrator for some of the movie retrospectives on our JoBlo Originals YouTube channel, including Reel Action, Revisited and some of the Top 10 lists. He is a graduate of the film program at Missouri Western State University with concentrations in performance, writing, editing and directing.