Nicolas Cage Helps Longlegs Hit Box Office Record
The latest horror thriller to hit the big screen has just raked in $3 million in box office sales during its one-day preview period, setting the film up to smash the opening weekend numbers set by an independent film. Nicolas Cage stars in Longlegs, a production made possible by the newly formed Neon Rated, LLC. As the weekend approaches, the hype surrounding the film is expected to drive up ticket numbers and help revive a lackluster summer box office at theaters.
Longlegs
Nicolas Cage takes top billing in a rare role that puts him as the antagonist in Longlegs. His title character is a ruthless serial killer that stalks and kills entire families, demonstrating a lethal set of skills that is only matched by his cunning and ability to elude apprehension.
Longlegs has a signature MO and it’s left up to FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) to solve the clues the killer deliberately leaves behind at each murder scene.
The Mystery
Piecing together what ties the victims together (the families each have a daughter with a birthday on the 14th of the month and are killed on either the 8th or 20th of the month), Harker pores over the letters that the serial killer leaves behind at his victims’ homes.
The Nicolas Cage character’s scrawls are decoded to show Satanic imagery and more codes, followed by the Longlegs signature.
Alongside Nicolas Cage and Maika Monroe, Longlegs co-stars Blair Underwood, Alicia Witt, Dakota Daulby, Kiernan Shipka, and Jason Day.
Osgood Perkins
At the helm of the latest Nicolas Cage film is director Osgood Perkins. The son of Psycho‘s Norman Bates portrayer Anthony Perkins, “Oz” made his acting debut portraying a young Norman Bates in the 1983 film Psycho 2.
He brings a multitude of horror experience to Longlegs, with previous acting roles in Wolf, Dead and Breakfast, and Nope, as well as directorial credits for The Girl in the Photographs, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, and Gretel & Hansel.
A Potential Record Breaker
Nicolas Cage is expected to help drive the Longlegs film opening ticket sales to a whopping $15 million. This would far surpass the opening weekend receipts for an indie film set earlier this year by the Sydney Sweeney horror film Immaculate, which opened at $5.3 million after a preview day that didn’t quite hit the million-dollar mark.
The Competition Is Worried
The mid-July summer drought at the box office might lead Nicolas Cage and company to pass up many of the other films at theaters this weekend, including the big-budget romantic comedy Fly Me to the Moon, a film that couldn’t be further away on the spectrum for audiences than Longlegs.
The $100 million film stars Channing Tatum and Scarlett Johansson and is only anticipating a weekend of $12 million at the box office that followed a $875,000 day in previews returns.
The latest Nicolas Cage feature will be playing on an estimated 2,500 theater screens during the opening weekend, quite an impressive debut for an independent film. Per Neon’s contract with the streaming giant, Longlegs will be available on Hulu in the near future.
Sources: Variety
