Tarot has more than quintupled its budget and become one of the highest-grossing horror movies of the year. The new movie, which was based on Nicholas Adams’ 1992 novel Horrorscope, stars Harriet Slater, Adain Bradley, Avantika, Olwen Fouéré, and Jacob Batalon and follows a group of friends who are hunted by supernatural monsters after having their horoscopes read using a cursed tarot deck. Overwhelmingly negative Tarot reviews have landed it a 19% score on Rotten Tomatoes, but that didn’t prevent the movie from nearly tripling its budget in its first 10 days at the box office.

Per Box Office Mojo, Tarot has earned $45.4 million worldwide ahead of its seventh weekend in theaters despite already being available on VOD as of May 28. This means that the movie has earned five and a half times its $8 million budget. On top of that, it has become the fourth highest-grossing horror movie of 2024, outgrossing prominent titles including Blumhouse’s twisted childhood movie Imaginary ($39.1 million), Renny Harlin’s franchise reboot The Strangers: Chapter 1 ($39.2 million), and Radio Silence’s ballerina vampire outing Abigail ($42 million).

How Big A Hit Tarot Is Compared To Other 2024 Horror Releases

Tarot’s Small Budget Has Helped It Succeed

The Tarot release has so far only been outdone in 2024 by three titles, namely the prequel The First Omen, the Blumhouse haunted pool movie Night Swim, and the South Korean supernatural title Exhuma (which performed extraordinarily well internationally despite only running in limited theaters for one week in North America). However, a movie’s break-even point is usually at least twice its production budget, so its low budget makes it competitive even among those ranks. See a full breakdown of the performance of 2024’s Top 5 horror movies below:

Ultimately, the Tarot movie had the best return on investment of the four titles for which budget information is available. In fact, two of them likely didn’t break even due to their larger budgets, including one that outgrossed the $8 million title on the chart. Additionally, one element that those estimated break-even points don’t cover is the cost of marketing. While other titles on the chart were more blockbuster-oriented and had more robust publicity campaigns, Tarot‘s marketing was likely substantially less costly and its success came more from word of mouth, helping it succeed financially in that arena as well.

It seems certain that Tarot will slip lower down the chart of 2024 horror releases as the year wears on. There are other major horror releases set to come to theaters that are attached to prominent franchises and filmmakers and will thus likely outgross it, including A Quiet Place: Day One, Alien: Romulus, and Smile 2. However, despite the horoscope-inspired shocker probably being knocked from the Top 5, it seems improbable that any other title will become such a singular hit in terms of its budget and success in the face of such a critical drubbing.

Source: Box Office Mojo