entertainment / Sunday, 23-Feb-2025

Heart Eyes Becomes First 2025 Horror Movie To Pass Major Domestic Box Office Milestone

Heart Eyes has achieved a 2025 horror first by passing a major box office milestone. The slasher movie, which follows two coworkers (Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding) who are mistaken for lovers by a couple-targeting killer on Valentine's Day, debuted at No. 2 behind Dog Man on the weekend before Valentine's Day. The Heart Eyes release then pulled off a near-impossible feat by harnessing the appeal of its holiday setting for a +19% sophomore weekend boost the following weekend, which marked the third-best week 2 performance for a slasher movie in cinema history.

Per Deadline, as of Saturday morning, Heart Eyes is projected to take in a 3-day total of $3 million at the domestic box office by the end of its third weekend in theaters. Although this sees it dropping 70% after Valentine's Day weekend, it is still neck and neck with the Chinese animated hit Ne Zha 2 for the No. 5 spot on the chart. Additionally, this brings its cumulative domestic total to $26.925 million, making it the first horror movie of 2025 to pass the $25 million domestic milestone and only the sixth to do so in general.

What This Means For Heart Eyes

The Horror Movie Is On Its Way Toward Success

In addition to performing better than 2025's other horror releases so far, including Blumhouse's Wolf Man reboot, the Steven Soderbergh haunted house movie Presence, and the horror-adjacent sci-fi thriller Companion, Heart Eyes has only fallen behind Captain America: Brave New World, Dog Man, One of Them Days, Den of Thieves: Pantera, and Flight Risk at the domestic box office. To compare, its fellow Valentine's Day-themed release, the Ke Huy Quan action-comedy Love Hurts, has already dropped out of the domestic Top 10 with a cumulative gross under $15 million.

Love Hurts debuted on the same weekend as Heart Eyes, premiering at No. 3.

It is still too early to call the movie a proper horror hit, however. Its reported $18 million budget likely means that it will need to earn $45 million in order to break even. However, its current trajectory, the fact that glowing Heart Eyes reviews have earned it a Certified Fresh Rotten Tomatoes score of 81%, and the possibility that its holiday theme will lead to annual re-watches on VOD and streaming all point to it becoming a solid commercial success in the long run.

Our Take On The Heart Eyes Box Office Milestone

The Slasher Has Achieved A Major Accomplishment

Olivia Holt as Ally screams beside a knife in Heart Eyes
Olivia Holt as Ally screams beside a knife in Heart Eyes

Eventually, another title will swoop in to steal Heart Eyes' title as the highest-grossing 2025 horror movie at the domestic box office. In fact, it seems highly likely that the new release The Monkey - a Stephen King adaptation that is writer-director Osgood Perkins' follow-up to the 2024 hit Longlegs - could surpass it soon after debuting with an estimated $14 million. However, the fact that the original slasher has outgrossed an IP-related project like Wolf Man shows that it has strong potential to become one of the most memorable horror releases of the year.

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Source: Deadline

Heart Eyes - Poster

Your Rating

Heart Eyes
5/10
18
7.1/10
Release Date
February 7, 2025
Director
Josh Ruben
Writers
Michael Kennedy, Phillip Murphy, Christopher Landon

Cast

See All
  • Cast Placeholder Image
    Olivia Holt
    Ally
  • Headshot Of Mason Gooding
    Mason Gooding
    Jay Simmonds

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