‘Gleefully bloodthirsty’ film is already highest grossing horror of 2025 with $45,000,000

Theo James stands in front of blood covered curtains, covered in blood himself, in s scene from The Monkey — Horror film The Monkey has been the runaway success of its genre in 2025 (Picture: Neon)

A gleefully bloody and gruesome new film has already become the highest grossing horror movie of 2025, by quite some margin.

Stephen King adaptation The Monkey, starring Theo James, has had a very successful run in cinemas so far, raking in $45,771,792 (£35,542,624) after just over two weeks on release.

Directed by Longlegs filmmaker Osgood Perkins, the film has managed a haul of over $31million (£24m) domestically in the US, combined with over $14m (£10.8m) elsewhere, adding up to the biggest box office for a horror picture so far this year.

It’s ahead of both off-beat ‘rom-com’ horror Companion and Wolf Man, the latest in Universal’s retelling of its classic monster movies, both of which earned over $34m (£26m) according to Box Office Mojo.

The Monkey is also the seventh highest grossing film overall of the year, behind the likes of Captain America: Brave New World, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy and Oscar-winner Bong Joon Ho’s latest film Mickey 17.

After grabbing a lot of attention before release when its trailer was banned by major US TV networks for ‘excessive violence’, the word-of-mouth hype has translated well into bums on seats – and a solid 79% rating on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.

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It follows twin brothers, Hal and Bill (both played by James), who find a mysterious wind-up monkey in the attic before a series of outrageous deaths tears their family apart.

Years later the monkey begins a new killing spree, forcing the estranged siblings to confront the cursed toy.

Described as ‘a campy, blood-spattered death fest sure to entertain fans with its liberal body matter, carnage and swearing’ in my four-star review for Metro, The Monkey still has some way to go before it matches the remarkable box office of Perkins’ Longlegs.

That horror movie, starring Nicolas Cage as a creepy serial killer pursued by an FBI agent, managed a shade under $127m (£98m) on a budget of under $10m (£7.7m) – around the same as that of The Monkey.

Monkey (Picture: NEON) — The Monkey is one of the top grossing films of the year too, after its trailer was banned for ‘excessive violence’ (Picture: Neon)

Tatiana Maslany, who also starred in The Monkey alongside Elijah Wood, Colin O’Brien and Sarah Levy – and has another horror movie under her belt with Perkins already – said of her decision to work with the horror auteur: ‘I was so obsessed with working with him and loved the experience so much – I was reminded of why making movies can be so fun, even if you have a budget of $0, so I just wanted to work with him, no matter what.’

She continued to Metro: ‘But then when I read the script, it was tonally so very different from what we’d done [on Keeper] and what Longlegs was, so I was really excited by that big swing.’

The Monkey is in cinemas now.

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