movies

“Longlegs,” an occult-tinged horror mystery about an FBI agent on the trail of a serial killer, opened to a phenomenal $22.6 million, easily outgrossing “Fly Me to the Moon,” a $100 million dollar rom-com featuring two of Hollywood’s brightest stars.

To pull off that upset, “Longlegs” got a lift from some sensational reviews, as well as a creepy performance by Nicolas Cage. The film’s opening weekend results are a record-breaking debut for Neon, the indie distributor that did an outstanding job of generating word-of-mouth for “Longlegs” thanks to a viral marketing campaign. It was one that saw the studio create a “90s-style website” highlighting the gruesome crimes of its antagonist, as well as a phone number that people could call to hear a demented message from Cage. It’s a page right out of the playbooks of previous cult hits like “The Blair Witch Project,” where it worked so well that it essentially created a new paradigm for building buzz, and “Snakes on a Plane,” where a bunch of people got personalized recordings of Samuel L. Jackson ranting about air travel and reptiles. “Longlegs” was directed by Osgood Perkins and stars “It Follows” breakout Maika Monroe, both of whom just turbocharged their asking prices.

What makes the result even more impressive is how little Neon shelled out to achieve its success. The movie was produced for under $10 million and the studio spent roughly the same amount to market and distribute “Longlegs.”

“This has been a really wild ride,” said Elissa Federoff, Neon’s chief distribution officer. “Working with the film’s creative team, we have been able to put together something really special. When you start with a film as wholly original as this one and you combine it with a fully fleshed out, bespoke marketing campaign, you can achieve something extraordinary.”

But even though “Longlegs” was the big story of the weekend, the top slot at the box office went to “Despicable Me 4,” which retained its box office crown after dominating moviegoing throughout the Fourth of July holiday. The animated comedy from Universal and Illumination earned $44.6 million in its second weekend of release, pushing its domestic total to $211.1 million. This week the companies announced they were making “Minions 3,” a “Despicable Me” spinoff, which is scheduled to hit theaters in 2027. The “Despicable Me” series recently topped $5 billion at the global box office, becoming the first animated franchise to hit that milestone.