With Christmas firmly in the rearview mirror, 2024 is almost in the books. But this year's holiday frame has been particularly good at the box office, as both 'Sonic the Hedgehog 3' and 'Mufasa: The Lion King' continue their big strides at the top of the charts. More importantly, several new releases also found their footing to help close the year on a high note, most notably director Robert Eggers' Nosferatu, which had a stellar opening. The long-awaited new take on the vampire classic absolutely exceeded expectations, delivering a major win for horror as the new year approaches.

"Nosferatu" took in $21.1 million over the weekend, but as the film hits theaters Wednesday to join the Christmas action, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Eggers' latest earned a whopping $40.3 million across the holiday stretch, which was good enough for third place on the charts. Even on a hefty $50 million budget, this one is off to a great start. It's one of the biggest debuts ever for a Focus Features release and nearly doubled pre-release estimates. which had a vampire film pull in just over $20 million on the move from Wednesday to Sunday.

This development is all the more surprising since vampires have seemingly been poison to the film's commercial prospects in recent years. Universal saw 'Renfield' and 'Demeter's Last Voyage' flop in 2023. Meanwhile, the studio suffered another theatrical disappointment in the vampire subgenre with Abigail earlier this year. Eggers, however, managed to turn things around with his bold new take on the Dracula-inspired Nosferatu mythos.

So what went right here? How did Eggers defy the odds to deliver what looks like a modern vampire classic in the making? We'll take a look at the biggest reasons why Nosferatu hit the box office big. Let's get into it.

Not that it always sways audiences, but when it comes to a major studio horror film, having critics on the sidelines is never, ever a bad thing. In the case of Nosferatu, the critics were very much on his side. As of this writing, the movie has a damn good 86% approval rating Rotten tomatoes with over 200 reviews counted. It created a lot of buzz in the film's latest marketing push. Even though the CinemaScore is so B-, that's actually not bad for a horror movie. As such, word of mouth should be decent as the weeks go by. At the very least, we're not looking at an intense split picture. People like what Eggers cooks.

/Filmmaker Chris Evangelista praises Nosferatu in his review 9 out of 10calling it "truly scary" and "one of the best films of the year". So it's not just that many critics like it. Those who like it seem to genuinely like it. Again, it all helps drive buzz not only for these opening weekend numbers, but also for the retention numbers in the weeks ahead, as well as the international release. For now, the needle is pointing firmly in the right direction.

Another thing working in this film's favor is the overall horror landscape in recent weeks. In short, there wasn't much of a horror landscape at all. In early December, "Wrewolves," "Y2K," "Get Away" and "Nightbutch" hit theaters on the same day. All of them also failed, which pretty much left the audience without many options in the last few weeks.

We must return to the A24 Heretic with Hugh Grant in early November to find another mainstream box office hit. Even by early December, Terrifier 3 was largely running out of steam. All of this to say, horror-seeking audiences were fully prepared — if not hungry — for something new by the time Nosferatu hit theaters on Christmas Day. Despite what seemed like a not-so-obvious release date, the Focus came out the other side looking pretty smart.

As mentioned earlier, Sonic 3 and Mufasa dominated the five-day Christmas period with $59.8 million and $63.9 million, respectively. Other crowd pleasers such as Wicked and Moana 2 also continued their respective strong scores, while other newcomers such as A24's Babygirl and James Mangold's Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown' also fared better than expected. That being said, there was an awful lot of competition in theaters around the holiday frame. The key thing here? None of them were horror movies, and most of them were family offerings. This gave Nosferatu a real opportunity to infiltrate as counterprogramming. It worked like gangbusters for the Focus.

Yes, during Christmas the family fare will be good as it will complement the spirit of the season. But not all moviegoers want something (all due respect) as bland as "Mufasa." For thrill seekers, Nosferatu was the most logical option. Similar to how Gladiator II proves to be a great counter to Wicked in November, this proved to be a great genre option for a significant number of ticket buyers. Horror doesn't have to be limited to summer or fall. Winter can be fertile for these films as well, just as blockbusters don't have to be strictly contained to summer. Audiences want to be entertained year-round, is another way to look at it.

Incredibly, Nosferatu now holds the record for the biggest Christmas opening for a horror film. The remarkable thing about it is that Robert Rodriguez's The Faculty ($11.6 million) held the record for 26 years after its 1998 release. No movie finds this level of success without a great marketing campaign. Focus, to its credit, gave the film one hell of a run.

On the Nosferatu trailers effectively sold spooky, gothic horror vibes to the masseswhile one of the biggest, boldest decisions by the studio was to completely hide Bill Skarsgård's Count Orlok. It's not like NEON withheld the full Nic Cage reveal from the Longlegs trailers. Likewise, it has been shown to spark curiosity in the minds of potential audience members. What did the guy who played Pennywise on "It" want to bring to the party as one of the most famous vampires in horror history?

From assembling a cast to releasing some eye-popping images to the world in the weeks leading up to the release, everything went right here. Lisa Bunnell, head of distribution at Focus Features, explained how the unlikely choice worked in the studio's favor in an interview with Diversity:

"When we dated the movie for Christmas, people weren't like, 'Wow, that's easy.' The exhibitors were surprised that we would do this Gothic story at Christmas.

Eggers made a splash as a director with his debut film, The Witch. That film was a relatively big hit for its time considering its small budget, and that bought Eggers a lot of credibility with hardcore horror fans. Its follow-up, The Lighthouse, was similarly a qualified hit against expectations, but it was far from mainstream. In 2022, Eggers tried to do something more for the masses with "The Northman," but bombed with a $12 million opening against a budget of $90 million. It was a historical epic filtered through Eggers' unique vision that failed to resonate with the average viewer.

Cut to now and the success Nosferatu has enjoyed. It is, at once, still very much an Eggers film, while also being the first truly (relatively) mainstream film the director ever made. When horror works, it has a very loyal audience. Among the casting of Skarsgård as the title character and making a straight horror movie, Nosferatu managed to attract a very large audience. This was Eggers using all the cache he had built up with cinephiles over the last decade and cashing in those chips to make something bigger in the genre space that had mass appeal. Safe to say, it worked out quite well for everyone involved.

Nosferatu is currently in theaters.