The weekend didn't go exactly as Blumhouse and Universal had planned. With the release of director Lee Whannell's Wolf Man, the studios probably realized they had a hit on their hands. Unfortunately, that's not the way things panned out. Whannell's latest largely underperformed, falling well short of expectations. Instead of making the charts, it had to settle for third place in the first big surprise of 2025.

"Wolf Man" opened to an estimated $10.5 million domestically, which was below even the most modest projections for the weekend. Overseas audiences won't be much help here either, as the film opened internationally to just $4.8 million. Blumhouse tends to make movies on the cheap, but this one carries a price tag of $25 million before marketing. Now, the monster faces an uphill battle for profitability.

As the weekend approached, "Wolfman" was eyeing a debut in the $20 million range. It would have been an unqualified victory. So what went wrong? Why did Whannell's latest fall short of expectations? Is there any chance of recovery? We're going to look at the bigger picture, breaking down five of the biggest reasons why this movie was such a disappointment. Let's get into it.

First and foremost, the reviews for "Wolf Man" weren't particularly good, to put it mildly. The film currently has a 52% approval rating from critics Rotten tomatoesto go with a score of 58% audience. Even worse, he earned a downright terrible salary C- CinemaScorewhich is among the lowest for almost any horror film of 2020. That does not bode well for his prospects in the coming weeks. /Filmmaker Jeremy Matai called "Wolf Man" a "semi-effective scare fest" in his 6 out of 10 review. In short, positivity was hard to come by.

The reinvention of the werewolf myth centers on Blake (Christopher Abbott), who inherits his remote childhood home in Oregon after his father disappears. Blake convinces his wife Charlotte (Julia Garner) to take a break from the city and visit the house with their daughter Ginger (Matilda Firth). Upon arrival, they are attacked by a mysterious animal and are forced to barricade themselves inside with the creature lurking. As the night goes on, Blake begins to act strangely.

Whannell previously pulled off a brilliant update to another monster classic in 2020 with The Invisible Man, so expectations for this one were very high. Right or wrong, that seems to work against his latest directorial effort.

There's no getting around the fact that the creature design in Wolf Man didn't help this film's case. Universal cleverly tried to hide the final design of the werewolf in the marketing. However, there was the now infamous snafu where someone was located dressed in a costume as the creature on Halloween Horror Nightswhich went viral and somehow poisoned the well.

It would be unfair to say that the costume is a completely accurate representation of what is in the film. It would be fair to say that Whannell did something unique that will always be divisive. Unless that incident happens on Halloween Horror Nights, who knows? But as things shook out, at least a certain number of people seemed to think they were going to fall prey to a bait and switch.

One of the biggest surprises of the weekend was Sony's "One of Them Days," which topped the charts with an estimated $11.6 million. The well-reviewed comedy came out of nowhere to essentially tie Disney's Mufasa: The Lion King ($11.5 million) at the top of the charts. While none of these are horror movies, it does illustrate that audiences had other crowd-pleasing options to choose from if they were dead when they went to the movies. Why go see a movie with bad word of mouth when there are other things to catch up on?

For those who were started watching a horror movie, Robert Eggers' Nosferatu is still out there running. That might have been a more attractive option for viewers who had been lining up to see it in previous weeks. If word of mouth had been stronger for Whannell's latest, we might be having a different conversation. But when there's so little good buzz, it's hard to get any momentum.

January movies are often not representative of Hollywood studios unleashing their A-game. January is traditionally considered a "junk month" for studies. While that's not always true, with movies like Bad Boys for Life changing that narrative, it's still something. Part of that has to do with the fact that the NFL playoffs usually air during this time, which can be difficult to compete with. To that end, marquee games were held this past weekend between the Houston Texans and Kansas City Chiefs, as well as the Washington Chiefs and Detroit Lions on Saturday. On Sunday we also had the Los Angeles Rams and Philadelphia Eagles along with the Baltimore Ravens and Buffalo Bills.

Those games determined which four teams would draw for a chance to play in the Super Bowl. That being the case, many potential ticket buyers were off the table. Then again, if the buzz for The Wolf Man was strong, some of those people might have figured out a way to print a pencil in some movie time. Who knows? If Ryan Gosling starred in it, as was originally the planthings might have been different. As it is, for a large percentage of the US, football won.

Perhaps more than any other subset of moviegoers, horror fans are very discerning. They are loyal and will emerge when cared for. They are hungry and looking for things. That said, they're also not ones to fall into the "fool me twice" camp that often. That being the case, it's hard not to wonder if Blumhouse's Bad Series at the Box Office in 2024 was a factor here.

Blumhouse is a name horror fans know, with The Purge, Get Out, the recent Halloween movies and Five Nights at Freddy's, among many other hits. But last year saw the release of Night Swimming, Imaginary and Frightened, all of which grossly under-delivered. The only winner was the studio's remake of Speak No Evil. Even in 2023, the studio had to experience the failure of The Exorcist: The Believer. So it's possible that the paying audience will take a wait-and-see approach. Blumhouse might not get an automatic pass right now. The Wolfman suffered a "wait until you stream it at home" fate at best. That, meanwhile, doesn't help the bottom line, nor does it change the narrative about Blumhouse.

Wolfman is in theaters now.