Why Blair Witch Bombed At The Box Office

Blair Witch

This past weekend was not a particularly impressive one at the box office. Three major films opened, and yet none of them were able to overcome a perfectly reasonable, but unimpressive, second week for Sully. One of the underperforming films included the unexpected return of an interesting horror property, Blair Witch.

It almost seems unfair calling Blair Witch a bomb, as, with its microscopic production budget ($5 million), the film is already profitable, regardless of the take. However, when compared to the way the original Blair Witch Project took theaters by storm, Lionsgate had to be expecting more. There are reasons that it didn't work out that way, however. These are our best explanations:

Blair Witch

Found Footage Is A Tired Gimmick

While The Blair Witch Project was not the first movie to use the found footage trope, it was still the movie that introduced it to mainstream audiences. That made the original film unique. However, nearly two decades later, found footage has been done to death. The Paranormal Activity franchise by itself has nearly destroyed it single-handedly. The last one of those is less than a year old. We've seen it now, it's nothing new. While it was apparently felt that the film needed to bring this back in order to be "Blair Witch-like," it didn't do the most important thing that the original did, which was bring something new to the table.

Blair Witch

It Came Out Far Too Late

If this movie was going to be made, it should have been done five, or even 10, years ago. If we learned one thing from Independence Day: Resurgence, it's that nobody is looking for sequels to movies from two decades ago. The fans who made the original a hit have likely moved on, and the younger audience has no connection to the name, and without the connection, there's nothing there. Blair Witch's main hook was its connection to the original, but if you've never seen it, that means less than nothing to you.

Blair Witch

It Chose The Wrong Release Date

A quick review of hit horror movies shows an obvious pattern. They come out during the summer or they come out around Halloween. Blair Witch picked the wrong month, missing both of those windows entirely. Young people, the primary audience for horror movies, don't hit theaters as much right now. Teenagers are in school, and cinemas tend to take a shift toward more serious films, not the type that younger movie fans go for. The horror crowd had just finished watching the excellent Don't Breathe and they needed a break before their next major dose of the genre.

Blair Witch

The Marketing Was Confusing

If there was one thing that The Blair Witch Project did right, it was the marketing. It was one of the earliest examples of an internet viral marketing campaign. Fans were less internet savvy because the internet itself was new, and so the implication that the events of the film actually happened had many moviegoers questioning the truth. The sequel tried a different tact. Their unique marketing idea was to promote the film as something else entirely. Up until San Diego Comic-Con, we all thought an unrelated film called The Woods was being released. While the idea had merit, the decision to let the cat out of the bag two months before Blair Witch hit theaters meant that whatever "wow" factor the reveal produced had worn off by the time the movie came out.

Blair Witch

Blair Witch Is Not A Franchise

Last year, Jurassic World came out and blew the world away, becoming one of the highest-grossing movies of all time. This, even though the last outing of the franchise, Jurassic Park III, came out almost as long ago as The Blair Witch Project. However, that series was able to build over three entries and become a name that people knew, even if they had never seen one of the films. Blair Witch had one movie people loved at the time, and a second that everybody hated from the very beginning. If all you have to trade on is your name, it had better be a stronger name than Blair Witch.

Dirk Libbey
Content Producer/Theme Park Beat

CinemaBlend’s resident theme park junkie and amateur Disney historian, Dirk began writing for CinemaBlend as a freelancer in 2015 before joining the site full-time in 2018. He has previously held positions as a Staff Writer and Games Editor, but has more recently transformed his true passion into his job as the head of the site's Theme Park section. He has previously done freelance work for various gaming and technology sites. Prior to starting his second career as a writer he worked for 12 years in sales for various companies within the consumer electronics industry. He has a degree in political science from the University of California, Davis.  Is an armchair Imagineer, Epcot Stan, Future Club 33 Member.