Box Office Mojo
Box Office Mojo is the go to place for reading the latest statistics on all the movies that can have information scrounged up, run less professionally than the others to the extent that it looks like a site from the late 90's. If there is data available about budget, costs, reaping and profit then your first port of call should be this site. Horror is an especially interesting genre to study under this as the cheap nature of the genre makes them especially profitable, especially with found footage or mockumentry styled movies that are designed to look cheap.
As I mentioned on the Metacritic page, you can see that the films that make a killing in the slasher genre are audience favorites like Scream, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare of Elmstreet; all vintage horror titles and two of which actually containing valuable social commentary as SYNTH intends to which is an encouraging factor. Of course, the most profitable horror film ever was the first Paranormal Activity but that's down to it's $15,000 budget and ridiculous expansion to the point of being an over saturated and boring brand. Based on the numbers, we also see that the real money in slasher films at least is in their longevity, a flick that can achieve cult status is destined to go on to sell for decades beyond the original opening through merchandising, re-releases and fan bait.
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It is also important I think the highlight two other points:
1: One of the highest grossing movies is legendary cross-over and personal darling Freddy vs Jason which - putting aside it's merit as a perfectly pitched and awesome movie - reaped so much through the cross pollination of fan bases with the Elm street crowd and the Crystal lake following merging to see their favorite fictitious serial killers duke it out. By merging existing franchises, you stand to double the potential demographic as fans of each side not only pour into the cinema on release data but invest in the auxiliary offerings to catch up on the story so far.
2: The majority of the high yield titles on this list are either sequels or remakes which given the butchering of Elm Street and Friday in their 2010/2009 incarnations respectively is a truly heart breaking thing. However, it goes to show that existing brands are the safer bet for a guaranteed buck even if we are seeing a lot of new IP emerge routinely thanks to the low productions costs of the majority of horror flicks.
1: One of the highest grossing movies is legendary cross-over and personal darling Freddy vs Jason which - putting aside it's merit as a perfectly pitched and awesome movie - reaped so much through the cross pollination of fan bases with the Elm street crowd and the Crystal lake following merging to see their favorite fictitious serial killers duke it out. By merging existing franchises, you stand to double the potential demographic as fans of each side not only pour into the cinema on release data but invest in the auxiliary offerings to catch up on the story so far.
2: The majority of the high yield titles on this list are either sequels or remakes which given the butchering of Elm Street and Friday in their 2010/2009 incarnations respectively is a truly heart breaking thing. However, it goes to show that existing brands are the safer bet for a guaranteed buck even if we are seeing a lot of new IP emerge routinely thanks to the low productions costs of the majority of horror flicks.