Universal Goes All In On Horror Movies For 2022

We got word this morning that Universal will be releasing a remake/re-adaptation of Stephen King’s Firestarter on May 13, 2022. Like The Boss Baby: Family Business, Halloween Kills and Marry Me, the film will debut in theaters and on Peacock simultaneously. We will see how that impacts its theatrical fortunes, but Halloween Kills earned about as much ($92 million domestic and $131 million worldwide on a $20 million budget) as I would have predicted for the poorly-reviewed and less-zeitgeisty Michael Myers slasher sequel back when it was supposed to open in October of 2020.

In a skewed irony, that Peacock isn’t exactly a breakout streaming service means that I’d wager the hybrid release won’t hurt its theatrical grosses as badly as, say, offering Black Widow in theaters and as a $30 add-on on Disney+. However, Comcast has thus far “done it right” in terms of not centering Peacock as the be all/end all of Comcast’s future.

Anyway, the trailer for the upcoming theatrical looks decent enough, arguably selling the flick as a glorified #girlboss superhero origin story. I could roll my eyes at that, but A) the marketing is not the movie and B) the source material is a blind spot so I cannot say whether it’s an accurate reading.

Zac Efron and Sydney Lemmon play parents on the run with their fiery daughter (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) while Michael Greyeyes (a breakout from Rutherford Falls and Wild Indian) plays the ruthless government operative hunting them down. Kurtwood Smith and Gloria Reuben co-star, with the score for the Keith Thomas-directed and Scott Teems-penned adaptation coming from none other than John Carpenter.

The film opens between Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (which Marvel will likely sell as a quasi-horror movie) on May 6 and Downton Abbey: A New Era (which I’m assuming will contain zero ghosts and/or goblins) on May 20. What’s interesting, at least to me, is the extent to which Universal’s 2022 slate is powered by event-sized horror flicks. Firestarter will be followed by Blumhouse’s very buzzy The Black Phone on June 24.

That fantastical kidnapping saga stars Ethan Hawke and comes courtesy of Scott Derrickson, who made the film after stepping away from the Doctor Strange sequel. It was moved from February to June on the strength of festival buzz and strong word-of-mouth. Jurassic World: Dominion (June 10) may not be a horror movie, but it should have enough dino carnage to scare anyone below the age of accountability.

We’re getting the first commercial and trailer for Jordan Peele’s Nope (July 22) during the Super Bowl, so we’ll have a better idea of what to expect from the Daniel Kaluuya/Keke Palmer/Steven Yeun chiller by Sunday night. It’s almost certain to be the year’s biggest live-action original. Universal will drop Baltasar Kormákur’s Idris Elba/Sharlto Copley “humans versus lion” thriller Beast on August 19.

Warner Bros. and New Line will dominate the genre space in September with Salem’s Lot on September 9 (which will be sold as an event-sized horror flick) and Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling on September 23. I’m assuming Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (September 23) is not a scary flick, but otherwise Universal hopes to rule the spooky season with David Gordon Green’s Halloween Ends (the final entry in the blockbuster sequel trilogy) on October 14.

Needless to say, not all of Universal’s 2022 biggies are s-sc-scary. I’m guessing Marry Me, Minions: The Rise of Gru and the Super Mario Bros cartoon will be lacking in blood, gore and carnage. However, Universal, which claims on their studio tram tour to have invented the horror movie, is again committing to both original and IP-specific horror as a viable theatrical sub-genre. That certainly makes sense, both in terms of their own success with the genre (I’m only enough to remember when Split and Get Out earned $500 million worldwide in early 2017 on a combined $15 million budget) and how it bleeds into their identity as a studio.

I guess you could try Sony’s Halloween Horror Nights, but it wouldn’t quite have the same cultural cachet. Moreover, horror movies have remained among the more bulletproof genres amid the pandemic.

A Quiet Place part II earned 87% of what A Quiet Place earned ($341 million) opening in May of last year despite a 14-month delay, a shorter theatrical window and related Covid variables. Halloween Kills had a better retention from Halloween than did Halloween Resurrection from Halloween H20 and either previous Halloween II (the 1981 flick and the Rob Zombie sequel in 2009) despite playing concurrently in theaters and on Peacock. M. Night Shyamalan’s Old earned about as much ($90 million) as The Visit ($98 million).

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It earned $200 million on a $39 million budget despite being available on HBO Max, while the recent Scream sequel made a miraculous franchise recovery, justifying a sixth film with a likely gross of around six times its $24 million budget. Even Sony’s small-scale sequels like Escape Room: Tournament of Champions ($51 million on a $15 million budget) and Don’t Breathe 2 ($47 million/$10 million) got the job done, while Blumhouse’s The Forever Purge and Candyman both earned over/under $77 million on respective $25 million budgets.

Alas, I’ll spend the rest of my days cursing everyone who ignored James Wan’s bonkers-bananas Malignant ($34 million on a $40 million budget) and Spiral likely closed the book on Saw ($40 million/$20 million). But, as frankly I’ve been saying since April of 2020, horror is an ideal theatrical genre, even more so than it was in pre-Covid times. The budgets are reasonable, the risk is lesser, they represent cinema as a communal experience and there is an obvious catharsis in confronting fictional terrors amid so many real-world perils.