‘Downton Abbey’ and ‘Demon Slayer’ Have More in Common Than You Think at the Box Office

After a terrible 2024 during which several major studio titles either underperformed or outright bombed, horror cinema announced its return with a grand run this year. But the hot-streak ended this week, thanks to a film that ironically counts one of the genre’s greatest benefactors as its producer. The movie Him, directed by Justin Tipping, made around $13 million in its first three days of release at the domestic box office, outperformed by last week’s holdover hit Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle. The anime mega-hit predictably plummeted in its second weekend, as did fellow television adaptation Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.