2025 has been a shaky year at the box office, as original projects continue to stumble with nearly every new release. Ryan Coogler's Sinners proved to be a major exception, earning $180 million domestically and thrilling viewers. Most of the prominent movies of the year, including A Minecraft Movie, Ne Zha 2, and Thunderbolts*, relied on name recognition to earn attention from audiences. The trend has held through since the pandemic began, as audiences have been hesitant to attend theaters in the age of streaming.

Horror movies have been able to buck concerning trends recently, as their relatively low budgets and easy marketability have made them more capable of surviving the tumultuous post-pandemic box office. Nope and Smile each earned over $100 million in 2022, while Five Nights at Freddy’s earned $137 million in 2023, despite enjoying a simultaneous streaming release. Each of these movies proved that horror movies are a unique theatrical draw, and...