Summary
- “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” flopped in its opening weekend, making only $6.5 million despite a $45 million budget.
- This is the second consecutive Dracula movie to be a disappointment, following the underperforming “Renfield” starring Nicolas Cage.
- Based on a chapter from Bram Stoker’s novel, the movie explores Dracula’s infiltration of a ship and his feeding on the crew during their journey to London.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter has become the second Dracula movie in a row to flop in its opening weekend. The movie, which was directed by Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark‘s André Øvredal, is an expansion of the chapter “The Captain’s Log” from Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. It follows the events that occur when Dracula (Javier Botet) infiltrates a ship traveling from Transylvania to London and begins to feed on the crew.
Per Deadline, The Last Voyage of the Demeter release on August 11 kicked off a dismal opening weekend. At the time of writing, the movie is only projected to take in $6.5 million by the end of Sunday, a paltry sum compared to its $45 million budget. This is even worse than the $8 million opening weekend of Renfield, which was one of the year’s most prominent flops despite starring Nicolas Cage as Dracula.
Could The Last Voyage of the Demeter Make Its Money Back?
Although it opened lower than Renfield, The Last Voyage of the Demeter also features a lower budget than the Nic Cage picture. Renfield cost $65 million, which marks a $20 million difference. This is most likely due to the more well-known Renfield cast, which also included Nicholas Hoult, Awkwafina, and Ben Schwartz.
By the end of its theatrical run, Renfield managed to earn $26.3 million worldwide. Assuming The Last Voyage of the Demeter continues to trail slightly behind the previous title, this means it will most likely come nowhere close to earning back its $45 million budget. That budget total also doesn’t include publicity costs for the movie, which push its benchmark for earning a profit back even further.
It also doesn’t help that the Last Voyage of the Demeter Rotten Tomatoes score has settled at a firmly Rotten 45 percent. If The Last Voyage of the Demeter hopes to make its money back, it likely won’t be able to do so in theaters. It remains to be seen if its VOD and home media releases will help boost that total into the black, but the gap is so large that it still seems unlikely.
Source: Deadline