Only one franchise-starter comes close to matching the disastrous results of Universal’s Dark Universe — a planned series of interconnected movies featuring classic “monsters” from the studio’s stable. The franchise-starter also happened to be a Universal project, and is suddenly seeing a spike in viewership at home. It was released in 2023 to toxic reviews and an underwhelming box office response, after the studio had already announced two further sequels with the same director. Neither of those sequels was made, and the studio was forced to admit that the audience hadn’t responded to the filmmaker’s vision and plan something fresh instead. Universal isn’t one to let go of potential IP material. Despite the failure of the Dark Universe, it released a poorly received Wolf Man movie, a surprisingly successful Invisible Man movie, and has a reboot of The Mummy slated for this year.
The studio was especially confident about the 2023 film, as its director had successfully delivered a trio of horror hits in quick succession. Universal had also spent a reported $400 million on securing the distribution rights to the property, hoping that the filmmaker could spin a billion-dollar-grossing franchise out of it. That didn’t happen. In fact, in addition to disappointing reviews, the movie grossed less than $140 million worldwide against a reported budget of $30 million — well below studio expectations. Especially telling was its weekend-to-weekend drop; the film fell by 58% in its sophomore frame, effectively sealing its fate and shattering any hopes for a rebound.
Here’s the Failed Franchise-Starter Rebounding on Streaming
The movie in question is The Exorcist: Believer, directed by David Gordon Green. The filmmaker had rebooted the Halloween franchise quite successfully for Universal, with Halloween, Halloween Kills, and Halloween Ends. The trilogy suffered from declining returns but grossed a combined total of nearly $500 million worldwide. The Exorcist: Believer, which brought back the classic 1973 film‘s stars Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair, was supposed to be followed by two more movies, the first of which was titled The Exorcist: Deceiver. However, its underwhelming box office performance and 22% Rotten Tomatoes score put an end to those plans. The website’s consensus described it as an “inauspicious” debut for the potential franchise. Despite its poor reputation, The Exorcist: Believer was among the most-watched movies on the global Netflix charts this week, when the leaderboard was topped by Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus.
The Exorcist franchise is now being rebooted by Mike Flanagan. Meanwhile, The Exorcist: Believer is streaming on Netflix. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
- Release Date
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October 6, 2023
- Runtime
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121 Minutes
- Director
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David Gordon Green
- Writers
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Peter Sattler, David Gordon Green