Terrifier 3, the independent US box-office smash of the season, is an unrated, uncut slasher movie that international buyers at AFM know all too well. Damien Leone’s latest franchise entry has just crossed $50m in its fourth weekend through Cineverse, after a dazzling run that began when it usurped Joker: Folie À Deux to claim top spot in an $18.9m opening weekend (October 11-13).
The latest escapades of the sadistic Art the Clown cost around $2m to make and $500,000 to market — in stark contrast to Warner Bros’ ill‑fated sequel about a sad clown, which reportedly cost $200m to make, a further $100m to market and stands just shy of $60m domestically after a month on release.
In a year when films have been in short supply and low-budget fare in particular continues to struggle for eyeballs, it is hard to find a more potent example of the extraordinary potential of independent cinema. “In my long career at Disney and Universal and MGM and Overture, I’ve released probably more than 500 movies, and a lot of them independent movies at UA, Miramax and Overture,” says Cineverse CEO Chris McGurk. “This is the highest return-on-investment movie I’ve ever been involved in.”
Diverse content
Formerly known as Cinedigm, Cineverse largely moved away from the theatrical space to focus on day-and-date releases. Primarily a streaming and technology company, it owns 31 channels (subscription, ad-supported and FAST) such as Screambox, and the horror website Bloody Disgusting. However, it is not a horror company and delivers a library of 70,000 premium films, series and podcasts across all genres — including family and Asian content — to more than 150 million unique members monthly.
The Terrifier franchise, which Priscilla Smith’s sales outfit The Coven has been licensing to international buyers at markets like AFM for a while now, has been going since 2016. In 2022, McGurk, who in his career has served as president and COO at Universal Pictures, president of The Walt Disney Motion Picture Group and founder and CEO of Overture Films, acquired Terrifier 2 when his colleagues at Bloody Disgusting raved that Art the Clown could become the next Freddy Krueger, the grisly antagonist from the A Nightmare On Elm Street films.
Terrifier 2 opened to $1.2m from approximately 770 theatres in October 2022 and finished on around $10.6m from a $250,000 marketing spend. “We used Bloody Disgusting to do a viral campaign, and we [reached people] on our own streaming channels when we had 40 million viewers. Now we have 80 million,” says McGurk. “We used the unused inventory on our channels to market at no out-of-pocket cost to ourselves.”
Cineverse, working with Iconic Events Releasing as its theatrical distribution partner, used the same playbook on Terrifier 3. “We leveraged our entire infrastructure this time and doubled our spend to $500,000,” says McGurk, who became Cineverse’s CEO in 2011. “We probably got $5m-$10m in media value by marketing on our channels, on our podcasts,” as well as viral and social-media campaigns with Bloody Disgusting.
“We used streaming to make a theatrical release work at the box office and financially, because we eliminated the marketing spend,” he says. “That’s a great thing for independent film. We hope other people will try to do that or use our network to do it, because using broadcast media or national advertising is the most inefficient spend you can do.”
Cineverse released a teaser and an official trailer in July and August respectively, and in September the film premiered at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. “People went crazy and the reviews started coming in from fans and critics,” says McGurk. “That’s when we knew we had something.”
The marketing team, led by Lauren McCarthy, orchestrated activations and novel tie-ins. They dressed actors as Art the Clown to skulk around Times Square, projected images onto the sides of buildings to save money on billboards and arranged promotions with the Venmo mobile payment app and top videogame franchise Call Of Duty.
Beyond the hardcore horror crowd, Cineverse targeted women and the date-night crowd, playing up Art’s humorous, campy side. Exit polling service PostTrak reported a 39% female opening weekend crowd, while 18-24-year-olds represented the largest demographic on 37% share. McGurk says around 45% of the audience was Hispanic.
Many went in groups. There are anecdotal reports of youngsters buying tickets to see The Wild Robot and sneaking in to see Terrifier 3. “No other distributor had the guts to release it uncut, unrated, with complete creative control for the director,” says McGurk.
How high can Terrifier 3 go? It has already earned nearly $75m worldwide, including close to $25m from international markets. Discussions are underway to re-release over the holiday season, in keeping with the film’s Christmas theme. As for a fourth instalment, Screen International understands there could be news in early 2025.
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