EXCLUSIVE: In a year that was heavy with horror, for a minute it appeared as though Blumhouse and Atomic Monster were on a stale streak, particularly when sequel M3GAN 2.0 didn’t live up to the blockbuster status of the first 2023 film. But in the end, the genre label is having the last laugh, err scare, as all eight of their productions combined to gross $1.022 billion at the global box office for calendar year 2025. That’s the first time as a combined company that the Blumhouse and Atomic Monster slate has made more than $1B. By the way, that’s off of combined production costs of $204M before P&A. Talk about profitable.
Blumhouse and Atomic Monster’s merger was made official in January 2024. The previous best box office year was 2023, with four Blumhouse movies —Insidious: Red Door, M3GAN, Five Nights at Freddy’s and Black Phone— raking in $821.9M. Atomic Monster’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and Nun II made combined close to $710M worldwide.
Here’s how this all breaks down as some of the titles aren’t with Blumhouse’s home distributor Universal. The bulk of Blumhouse-Atomic Monster’s gross is with the New Line finale (but is it really the last one?) Conjuring: Last Rites which minted $494.6M, the best ever in the franchise besting The Nun‘s $366M global take. It’s also the only Conjuring movie to have grossed north of $400M WW. The Patrick Wilson-Vera Farmiga starring, Michael Chaves directed R-rated horror movie reps 48% of Blumhouse-Atomic Monster’s 2025. The Conjuring is the highest grossing horror franchise ever through eight titles which have grossed $2.57 billion. Last Rites launched in the post-Labor Day weekend which Warner Bros has turned into a rich launch pad for horror films going back to 2017’s It.
Second, pushing the Jason Blum and James Wan label over $1 billion, is Universal’s Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 with $201.8M global, $108.9M of that made domestically. The sequel, also directed by Emma Tammi, went pure theatrical instead of theatrical day and date on Peacock like the 2023 movie. The original movie finaled at $291.5M WW. The Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise is nearing a half billion at the global B.O.
Third is Scott Derrickson’s Black Phone 2 with $132.1M WW, which was also Blumhouse-Atomic Monster’s third highest No. 1 opening stateside of the year ($27.3M), behind Conjuring Last Rites (best in franchise with $84M) and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 ($64M, a record opening for any movie in the post Thanksgiving/early December frame). All in the Black Phone franchise counts $293.5M. Black Phone 2 opened on Oct. 17 and it repped actor Ethan Hawke’s fourth collaboration with Derrickson after the Sinister series.
Fourth is NEON’s The Monkey based on the Stephen King short story and directed by Oz Perkins, which grossed $68.8M global ($39.9M domestic). The movie opened on Feb. 21 and followed twin brothers Bill and Hal who find their father’s old monkey toy in the attic. A series of gruesome deaths start and the brothers decide to throw the toy away and move on with their lives, thus growing apart over the years.
While M3GAN 2.0 didn’t work at $39M global ($24.1M domestic) next to the original’s hot $180M, it still gets Blumhouse and Atomic Monster to big numbers for the year. Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man was next with $34.1M worldwide ($20.7M domestic), followed by the Brandon Sklenar and Meghann Fahy starring April 11 date thriller, Drop, with $28.7M WW ($16.6M domestic), while Woman in the Yard after a March 28 theatrical release grossed $23.3M (96% of that made stateside).
First release for Blumhouse and Atomic Monster in the New Year is Lee Cronin’s The Mummy via New Line on April 17.