Blumhouse Productions and Universal’s The Invisible Man has surpassed the $100 million mark at the global box office. Not long after Tom Cruise’s The Mummy performed terribly both critically and financially did Universal’s Dark Universe look dead and buried, and any chance of future monster films looked bleak. However, with Leigh Whannell’s direction for 2020’s Invisible Man, Blumhouse’s traditional small budgets, and the fact the narrative is not forced to link to other monster tales, Universal’s monsters are now flourishing again. Thanks to positive reviews and an intriguing take on H.G. Wells 1897 novel, The Invisible Man scored nearly $29 million in its opening weekend, just shy of The Mummy’s $31.6 million, but it only had a budget of $7 million as opposed to $125 million.
H.G. Wells' novel, The Invisible Man, focused on a scientist named Griffin, who found a way to become invisible, but unfortunately, was unsuccessful in changing himself back to being visible before becoming mentally unstable. In the 2020 adaptation, Whannell decided to tell the story from the perspective of “the victim of The Invisible Man,” as Elisabeth Moss’ character Cecilia deals with an abusive partner, who has seemingly taken his own life, but as the trailer shows, is still very much in the head of Cecilia as she believes he has found a way to make himself invisible and torture her. The success and appreciation the film has received thus far have proven Whannell’s approach to be a good one, and the film is not planning on slowing down just yet.
According to a report from Variety, The Invisible Man “has crossed $100 million at the worldwide box office in less than two weeks.” The report states that the film “has grossed $54 million domestically and $48. 2 million internationally in 65 markets.” In addition to surpassing the $100 million mark worldwide, it also says the film’s opening of $28.2 million was “the highest launch for a horror title since last year’s IT Chapter Two."
The numbers are interesting because not only does it show how Blumhouse Productions has once again successfully budgeted a horror film as they did with Get Out in 2017, but the film also earned almost half of The Mummy’s domestic total in less than two weeks. Universal’s 2017 Mummy earned just over $80 million domestically, and with a far inferior budget and no Tom Cruise, The Invisible Man has made over half that domestic total in a little less than two weeks of its theatrical run.
This newfound success Universal’s famed monster character has experienced may now put them on a similar path to DC, where they focus more on standalone films of high quality, instead of cramming and forcing a universe on its audience. Whannell has already brought up the idea of rebooting Dracula, and the success of his The Invisible Man has seemingly opened the floodgates for more monster movies following in his most recent projects footsteps.
Source: Variety