- Genre That Pays: Why Horror Still Works
- Notable Festival Distribution Deals Since 2017
- Why Politics Don’t Sell: Horror Reclaims Community in a Fragmented Landscape
- Discover What Streaming Services Pay to License Films and Shows
- Market Shifts: TIFF Builds Its Own Deal Engine
- Lionsgate’s Play: Horror as Evergreen IP
- Sustainability Through the Genre Lens
- FilmTake Away: TIFF 50 Proves Horror Isn’t Fading—it’s Evolving
As TIFF celebrates its 50th anniversary, the festival spotlights what might be its most resilient genre amid a fractured marketplace: horror. With shrinking screen counts, compressed Pay-1/Pay-2 deals, and younger ticket buyers pulling away from theaters en masse, horror remains a rare safe-haven—cheap to produce, reliably engaging, and buoyed by fervent word-of-mouth among young theater-goers. TIFF 2025 is demonstrating this vividly, showing the genre’s economic instinct among serious industry players navigating uncertainty.
Genre That Pays: Why Horror Still Works
At TIFF’s Midnight Madness, Focus Features sealed a $15 million deal for “Obsession,” a horror film by a first-time director with a largely unknown cast. Though atypical for the studio, whose catalog includes prestige fare, this acquisition underscores horror’s rising financial cachet.
That ripple isn’t isolated. The chair of NBCUniversal pointed to a shift in horror’s DNA: “Auteur directors are turning to horror… not the horror we came to know in the past decade. The weirder the better.” That shift is paying off: Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu” grossed $182 million globally on a $50 million budget.
New Line/Warner Bros’ “The Conjuring: Last Rites” stunned even the most bullish forecasts after Sunday’s estimates were revised upward, pushing its worldwide debut to $194 million. That makes the Michael Chaves–directed installment the biggest global horror opener of all time, surpassing the $189 million start of the same studio’s “It” in 2017.
The milestone underscores both the resilience and profitability of the horror genre at a time when most other theatrical categories are underperforming. International audiences provided the largest boost: “Last Rites” bowed to $110 million across 66 markets, setting a new overseas benchmark for horror. Domestically, the film also ticked up from initial reports, adding another million to reach $84 million in North America—itself a franchise high-water mark.
This record-breaking performance demonstrates why horror remains the safest commercial bet for distributors and financiers alike. With relatively moderate production budgets, global appeal among younger demographics, and limited political baggage, films like “Last Rites” deliver outsized returns even as other genres falter. The fact that “Last Rites” not only doubled its predecessors’ launches but also rewrote the record books worldwide is a timely reminder that horror is one of the few genres capable of sustaining robust box office economics in today’s volatile distribution landscape, a sad testament to modern filmmaking indeed.
That sort of upside is rare these days. With 35 widely released horror titles expected in the U.S. in 2025, a 25% increase from last year and 80% above recent averages, the genre is expanding precisely because it works: made cheaply, sold easily, and consumed eagerly by a younger demo.
Notable Festival Distribution Deals Since 2017
Why Politics Don’t Sell: Horror Reclaims Community in a Fragmented Landscape
Cinema attendance is in steep decline. In 2024, U.S. ticket sales slipped by over 25%, with an expected 100 million fewer tickets sold this summer than a decade ago, raising continued concerns that theaters may never reclaim their pre-lockdown vitality. In the U.S., just 15% of adults now visit the cinema at least once a month, down sharply from previous years, while frequent moviegoing has decreased across all demographics. Blockbusters can still debut big, but the long-term habits of shared theatrical attendance appear fractured.
With theaters increasingly pushed to the margins of consumer habits, often bypassed in favor of streaming, convenience, or subscription models, one communal ritual remains: horror. While the rest of cinema becomes transactional, horror thrives as collective theatergoing, a manufactured (but deeply felt) gasp of social cohesion. In an age when nearly every piece of media is weaponized as a political statement, horror offers a rare break. It’s a genre built on tension, myth, and primal emotion, allowing audiences to show up without predispositions and bond via shared fear rather than shared beliefs.
Psychologically, horror offers emotional calibration: viewers learn to navigate fear safely, developing resilience in times of real-world stress. It’s also cathartic, like modern tragedy, providing release through a shared visceral experience.
What remains of theatrical filmgoing, then, is increasingly “manufactured” community—midnight screenings doubling as cultural rites, micro-audiences forming micro-cultures, and online fandoms amplifying every scream and jump scare. Horror is not a fallback—it is, in many ways, the last viable communal fix in a fragmented cultural landscape.
In this sense, horror isn’t just a genre—it’s a gathering place, a social anchor in dark venues where movies still matter as shared experiences. Amid volatility and shrinking attendance, that collective gasp may be the most reliable form of cinematic cohesion left.
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Market Shifts: TIFF Builds Its Own Deal Engine
TIFF has traditionally served as a loosely controlled market: meet, screen, whisper, and hope deals happen. It has never offered a structured venue like Cannes or AFM. That changes in 2026.
Launching TIFF: The Market—a seven-day event, scheduled for September 10–16 and federally funded with CAD $23 million, TIFF will transact film, TV, gaming, immersive media, and co-productions under one roof. The strategic intent is clear: become a North American springboard for content commerce, not just a seasonal lovefest.
Panelists flagged two challenges: timing (too early after Cannes, too close to AFM), and seller hesitancy (“Even at AFM, packages form at the last minute—Toronto might be too early”). Still, as AFM stumbles in logistics and leadership after a dismal debut in Las Vegas, TIFF’s initiative finds a rare audience: European sellers and finance-savvy buyers who can’t make two expensive trips.
Lionsgate’s Play: Horror as Evergreen IP
Big studios still need predictable franchises. Lionsgate is doubling down on horror-driven IP with a three-year co-finance/first-look deal with Golden Eagle Studios (Grodnik/Reisner). Its follow-up includes a sequel to “The Last Witch Hunter,” featuring Vin Diesel, seeking production paths with cost efficiency and library durability. The original grossed $130 million globally and recently surged in streaming popularity, ranking among Netflix’s top-viewed films.
This model—measured up-front investment for long-tail revenue—is the industrial side of horror’s indie charm. Studios realize that investing in established genre frameworks yields returns across digital storefronts, TV, merchandising, and syndication. For producers, horror is IP that travels.
Sustainability Through the Genre Lens
With Pay-1 and Pay-2 license fees shrinking—even streamers often low-balling terrain—distributors need titles that justify themselves beyond theatrical. Horror, with its tight budgets and built-in buzz potential, offers that platform.
TIFF 2025 saw multiple sales with clean economics. “Obsession’s” deal hit headlines; others traded in leaner structures but a clearly built-in pathway to monetization via late-night cable, AVOD, or FAST audiences. Buyers are more bullish on horror because they can model back-end projections—units, subscriptions, exploitation—where other prestige titles remain speculative.
FilmTake Away: TIFF 50 Proves Horror Isn’t Fading—it’s Evolving
At a time when the independent film business model remains elusive, TIFF 50 revealed why horror continues to endure—not by avoiding risk, but by offering a clear economic proposition.
The genre’s dominance at the festival signals a broader shift: festivals thrive when they engage audiences beyond prestige programming. Viewers return not for marquee names alone, but for the collective experience—thrills, shocks, and catharsis—that horror reliably delivers.
TIFF’s embrace of genre, coupled with preparations for its new marketplace and distributor interest in scalable slates, underscores a critical truth: in today’s fractured landscape, horror’s dependable economics are not relics of the past, but essential tools for navigating the future.