13 Movies That Shocked At The Box Office In 2018

6. The First Purge

Box Office: $137 million

2018 was a bizarre year for low-effort horror sequels/prequels/spin-offs posting the strongest results in their respective franchises.

The fourth Insidious movie, Insidious: The Last Key, kicked off last year by snatching the #1 spot from Insidious: Chapter 2, and a few months back The Nun steamrolled all four prior entries into the Conjuring "Universe" to take gold.

But no instance of this was more surprising than The First Purge, which rustled up $137 million worldwide, topping the previous franchise high of The Purge: Election Year's $118.6 million.

Given that the fourth Purge movie was a prequel that abandoned Election Year's compelling sequel hook and characters, it seemed destined to score on the lower end of the series.

Perhaps aided by the current political sentiment and the movie's aggressive swipes at the Trump administration, though, The First Purge clearly struck a chord with audiences.

Plans are already afoot for a fifth film which will apparently end the franchise, but if the grosses tick upwards once again, don't be surprised if series creator James DeMonaco walks that claim back.