12 Movies In 2016 That Should Have Flopped (But Didn't)
4. Lights Out
In the past, summer months haven’t been the most popular or profitable time to release horror movies but that seems to be changing lately. One of the movies that bucked the trend this year is low-budget horror Lights Out, a chilling little tale adapted from a 2013 short film made by Swedish director David F. Sandberg that raked in a whopping $148.8 million on a tiny budget of just under $5 million and impressed critics too.
No doubt bolstered by James Wan’s name being attached to the movie as co-producer and the fact it shared similarities with critically acclaimed Australian horror The Babadook, Lights Out is nevertheless made all the more impressive considering that it’s Sandberg’s feature film debut. It looks like we’ll be seeing a lot more from Sandberg too. Not only is a Lights Out sequel already in the works, he’s also directing spooky doll sequel Annabelle 2 and is in talks with New Line Cinema to develop more of his horror shorts into feature films in the not too distant future.