Days after Inside Out 2 broke every box office record for animated films that it could, and even as Deadpool & Wolverine sets new benchmarks for R-rated movies, Neon’s Longlegs is continuing its own success story in its weight class. The horror-thriller recently became the indie distributor’s top-grossing domestic release, ahead of Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, and this past weekend — its third — it also became the highest-grossing indie horror film of the last 10 years, according to Deadline.

Directed by Osgood Perkins and starring Maika Monroe and Nicolas Cage, Longlegs has been breaking box office records since its debut. It delivered the top opening in Neon‘s history, grossing over $22 million in its first weekend, and has since generated nearly $60 million domestically. With a further $10 million from overseas markets, Longlegs is on the verge of passing the $70 million mark globally. The movie was produced on a reported budget of less than $10 million, making this a huge return on investment for Neon.

The indie studio has been seen as A24’s closest competitor for years, but has struggled to match its rival’s box office performance and brand recognition. But after years of playing second-fiddle, Neon recently overtook A24’s top-grossing horror films such as Hereditary ($48 million) and Talk to Me ($44 million). Today, Longlegs will overtake the lifetime domestic box office haul of Zack Snyder’s debut feature film, Dawn of the Dead. It will then set its sights on overtaking the Candyman remake’s $61 million lifetime haul, The Purge’s $64 million lifetime haul, and The Exorcist: Believer’s $65 million lifetime haul.

Move Over A24, ‘Longlegs’ Is Entering Blumhouse Territory

Set in the 1990s and inspired by Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure, Longlegs follows a rookie FBI agent’s investigation into a decades-spanning serial killer case. The elusive killer is played by Cage. The film opened on the back of strong pre-release buzz fueled by an inventive marketing campaign that concealed Cage’s performance and appearance, and also the film’s actual tone. Most audiences were surprised to discover that Longlegs is a supernatural thriller with plenty of references to the occult.

Longlegs opened to positive reviews — it holds an 85% rating on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes — but its so-so CinemaScore suggested that it might not live up to its title. As it turns out, it did. In fact, it actually increased its theatrical footprint in week two, and is currently playing in around 200 more locations nationwide than it did when it opened.

via Collider