Genre - Box Office Receipts

Blair Witch, distributed by Lionsgate, was released on 16th September 2016, and achieved an opening weekend box office of £959,401within the UK. This was the second highest grossing film of that weekend (16th-18th September), behind Bridget Jones's Baby which had an opening weekend box office of £8,111,077 in the UK. This vast difference between the two films in opening revenue isn't just because of the film itself. Universal distributed Bridget Jones's Baby into 641 UK cinemas compared to Lionsgate distributing Blair Witch into 462 UK cinemas. Furthermore, Bridget Jones's Baby is a UK film where as Blair Witch originates from the US. Combined together, this reduces the sales figures for Blair Witch within the UK.

Another horror film, The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Case, was distributed by WarnerBros into 504 UK cinemas. Within the first week of its release, it had a gross of £4,637,862 which is very impressive for a horror film. This can be down to the vast amount of marketing WarnerBros did for The Conjuring 2. They created multiple trailers, lots of adverts and played them everywhere, TV, YouTube, FaceBook etc. This made the public very aware of the film and created lots of anticipation for it, helping to increase sales. The Conjuring 2 went on to make $320,200,000 in box office figures, which is very impressive for a horror films. Another film distributed by WarnerBros is Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. It is a US film, distributed into 612 UK cinemas after its release, achieving a gross of £14,621,007 in the UK, on the opening weekend alone. The second weekend, the film made £4,661,9590 in the UK, followed by £2,284,293 in the UK on the third weekend. Batman v Superman went on to make $873,300,000.

The difference between the two films is their genre, because both were advertised heavily on many different media platforms and both are well made productions. The genre is the key reason why The Conjuring 2, and other horror films such as Blair Witch, don't do as well as other film genres, e.g. animations (Finding Dory) and superhero films (Batman v Superman, Age of Ultron). Although the production company does make a big difference when it comes to total box office receipts, the type of genre the film is makes a much larger difference. We are doing a horror short film, so if it were to be distributed nationally, we wouldn't be expecting large amount of sales.