‘Despicable Me 4’ reigns at box office, while ‘Longlegs’ gets impressive start

Gru and the minions celebrated a second week in first place at the North American box office this weekend, while a small horror movie called “Longlegs” upset the starry $100 million "Fly Me to the Moon."

The supremacy of “ Despicable Me 4 ” was hardly a surprise, as the Universal and Illumination franchise added $44.7 million and pushed the film over $200 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. But the big upset came further down the charts with “ Longlegs ” more than doubling the debut of the Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum romantic comedy “ Fly Me to the Moon.”

“Longlegs,” an original horror about a serial killer starring Maika Monroe and Nicolas Cage, made an estimated $22.6 million from 2,510 theaters. That’s the best ever start for indie outfit Neon (most famous for releasing the Oscar-winning “Parasite”), which acquired the $10 million film for distribution. Written and directed by Osgood Perkins, “Longlegs” also scored the best opening for an R-rated film this year.

Neon deployed an innovative marketing strategy for the film, including touches like placing cipher messages in local newspapers and posting a Los Angeles billboard with a phone number that played an “unnerving” message. In its first 48 hours, the number received over 250,000 calls.