HERETIC Passes Sydney Sweeney’s IMMACULATE At The Box Office

It was a record-shattering weekend at the box office as the combination of Disney’s Moana 2, Universal’s Wicked and Paramount’s Gladiator II delivered more than $380 million worth of ticket sales combined from the Wednesday-to-Monday holiday stretch over Thanksgiving. While the titles were way down the charts, horror still had its part to play during the landmark weekend. 

For starters, A24’s acclaimed Heretic climbed further up the global charts for 2024. The film added a little over a million to its growing domestic total over the long holiday stretch. The Hugh Grant-starring religious flick has now earned $36.7 million worldwide, including $26.8 million from domestic audiences. That puts it past the total of another religious horror hit from earlier this year, namely NEON’s Immaculate. 

The film, which stars Sydney Sweeney, pulled in $35.3 million earlier this year. Immaculate left theaters months ago, but it will be getting a 4K Ultra HD release in December. There is no need to lower one to raise the other here, as both films were hits relative to their budgets and expectations. NEON and A24 aren’t known for delivering blockbusters, but they’ve done well with horror in recent years. 

Elsewhere, a little further down the charts, Parker Finn’s Smile 2 added $438,000 domestically in its seventh weekend. Its global total now stands at $137.6 million worldwide. It’s only a matter of time before Paramount announces Smile 3 at this rate. It’s really a matter of if, not when. 

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Somewhat quietly, Finn’s sequel has managed to overtake another NEON horror hit in the form of Longlegs, which may end up in the Oscar race later this year. Oz Perkins’ film starring Nic Cage pulled in $126.8 million earlier this year, breaking records and defying expectations. Again, both of these films are huge success stories for their respective studios. 

As it stands, the highest-grossing horror movies of the year are A Quiet Place: Day One ($261 million worldwide), Alien: Romulus ($350 million worldwide), Beetlejuice Beetlejuice ($451 million worldwide) and, to whatever degree one wants to consider it body horror of a sort, Venom: The Last Dance ($468 million worldwide). There’s also Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire ($571 million worldwide), holding it down for monster movies in the top five Hollywood releases globally for 2024. 

This was very much the calm before a relative storm for big horror movies in theaters. It’s largely been holdovers doing the heavy-lifting for several weeks. However, on December 6, Steven C. Miller’s creature feature Werewolves, Kyle Mooney’s horror/comedy Y2K and Marielle Hellers’ Nightbitch starring Amy Adams all arrive. They’ll be competing against the 10th anniversary re-release of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. As for which one will come out on top? We shall see. 

You can check out the full list of the top ten movies at the box office for the weekend of November 29, 2024, below. 

1. Moana 2 – $135.5 million (first weekend) 
2. Wicked – $80 million (second weekend) 
3. Gladiator II – $30.7 million (second weekend) 
4. Red One – $12.8 million (third weekend) 
5. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever – $3.2 million (fourth weekend) 
6. Bonhoeffer – $2.4 million (second weekend) 
7. Venom: The Last Dance – $2.2 million (sixth weekend) 
8. Heretic – $956,797 (fourth weekend) 
9. The Wild Robot – $670,000 (tenth weekend) 
10. A Real Pain – $665,000 (fifth weekend)