“The Conjuring: Last Rites” Crowns 2025 as Horror’s Biggest Box Office Year

Three weekends in, The Conjuring: Last Rites’ legs are already trembling at the box office, falling more than 50% in both North America and international markets.

The final installment in the nine-film Conjuring horror verse has Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle to blame. Ever since the anime hit global screens, every other competition has been gasping for breathing space.

But that’s only half the story in this resurrection gospel for the horror genre.

Overlooking the hitherto-noted unenviable legs is to appreciate the wider picture: 2025 has been a blissful year for scary flicks and Last Rites is famous among those leading the charge.

The Michael Chaves film debuted to a genre best of $83 million in North America and $197 million globally. Keen-eyed analysts would be quick to single out one fact:  its $114 million international haul lords over anything the superhero genre produced this year, including The Fantastic Four: First Steps ($99 million), Superman ($95 million), Captain America: Brave New World ($92.4 million), and Thunderbolts* ($86 million).

Already the most successful Conjuring film of all time, Last Rites is gunning to end up in $500 million territory, close to the run of Marvel’s First family. Final Destination: Bloodlines and 28 Years Later also scored franchise-high openings and runs.

And before anyone brings it up, it’s not just franchise films that are fueling this. Original stories like Sinners and Weapons displayed legs that nearly rewrote the concept of staying power at the box office. Sinners, in particular, fell an incredibly rare -6% in its second weekend domestically.

It’s a “renaissance” of horror that’s gluing “everyone to theaters,” declared Chase Sui Wonders, who starred in I Know What You Did Last Summer, to BBC Newsbeat.

She’s not exaggerating.

As of this writing, only Action ($2.1 billion) and Adventure ($1.49 billion) have grossed more in 2025 than the Horror genre in Hollywood ($1 billion). That’s a 16.9% market share across just 45 titles, up from 9.8% last year and 10% the year before—the genre’s highest slice of the pie this century.

Of course, by the time trio of Wicked: For Good, Zootopia 2, and Avatar: Fire and Ash come knocking for their pound of flesh at the closing months of the war, neither the upcoming Megan 2.0 nor Frankenstein, The Black Phone 2 and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 may be able to prop the horror genre’s fortunes any better.

Regardless, 2025 audiences are loving the gore and scary…and it’s spilling over to social media. TikTok-provided data reveals a 38% increase in usage of #horror videos globally on the app in the past 12 months—about 10.7 million people.

Any attempt to quickly dismiss this as a Hollywood-only phenomenon is swiftly dismissed by international audiences.

In Nigeria, for instance, the May 16–18 weekend made history: Sinners and Final Destination: Bloodlines topped the box office with ₦48 million and ₦43 million respectively, marking the first time horror films claimed the country’s top two spots.

Sinners barely budged in its second weekend (–0.2%), tying its ₦106 million debut. By the time it bowed out of the Nigerian cinemas, it did so head high: with ₦775 million, ranking fifth all-time, third among foreign releases behind only Black Panther and Wakanda Forever, and the only horror film in Nigeria’s all-time top ten.

All this is to say: horror movies have come a long way from being a thing for fanatics to a global phenomenon. Vogue’s Jonah Waterhouse reflects to GQ Australia: “In the past, horror movies have been seen as lowbrow. It’s fascinating to see the genre being reevaluated today…garnering the respect and acclaim they deserve.”

That shift would have seemed unthinkable just four years ago, when theaters were still recovering from the post-Covid slump. Now, horror is not only saving multiplexes but redefining what box office power looks like. Analysts point to improved quality, sharper marketing, and audiences craving both control and escape in uncertain times.

Indeed, in every story about the box office, comic films play a role. In this case, it’s currently-waning PR and disinterest—colloquially dubbed “superhero fatigue”—that has made low-budget, high-yield, horror films impossible to ignore.

Studios have clearly taken note. More horror titles are filling release calendars, and more audiences worldwide are embracing the gore, the chills, and the thrill of shared fear. The age of horror is upon us folks; squeamish viewers may need to adapt.