Box Office
Hearlded unfairly as a flop by many, Prince of Darkness actually made a modest profit for its studio and distributor, Universal and Alive Pictures. Costing just $3 million dollars to make, the movie topped out at just over $14 million dollars in the U.S.
While admitedly not even the advertising budget for most blockbusters today, it's important to remember that even by low-budget, mid-80s' standards, $3 million dollars was a miniscule amount so its box office performance isn't the disaster it might appear. In fact on its opening weekend, Prince of Darkness earned over $4.5 million dollars domestically, recouping its production costs and going into the green at an early stage.
According to the movie's box office figures at Box Office Mojo, it earned more than many of Carpenter's other more popular titles including They Live, In the Mouth of Madness, Big Trouble in Little China and Village of the Damned.
Considering that most of those movies had much bigger budgets than Prince of Darkness (Big Trouble in Little China, for example had a budget of $25 million dollars but went on to gross only just over $11 million dollars domestically), Prince of Darkness is actually one of Carpenter's most profitable films.
For a sense of scale of POD's performance compared to Carpenter's other major studio releases, here's a table of the films with their approximate budgets and lifetime domestic US box-office takings (listed most profitable first):
| Movie | Budget (approx.) | Domestic Gross | Profit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Halloween | $320,000 | $47,000,000 | $46,680,000 |
| The Fog | $1,000,000 | $21,378,361 | $20,378,361 |
| Escape from New York | $6,000,000 | $25,244,626 | $19,244,626 |
| Christine | $9,700,000 | $21,017,849 | $11,317,849 |
| Prince of Darkness | $3,000,000 | $14,182,492 | $11,182,492 |
| They Live | $4,000,000 | $13,008,928 | $9,008,928 |
| Starman | $24,000,000 | $28,744,356 | $4,744,356 |
| The Thing | $15,000,000 | $19,629,760 | $4,629,760 |
| Vampires | $20,000,000 | $20,308,772 | $308,772 |
| In the Mouth of Madness | $14,000,000 | $8,924,549 | $-5,075,451 |
| Village of the Damned | $22,000,000 | $9,418,365 | $-12,581,635 |
| Big Trouble in Little China | $25,000,000 | $11,100,000 | $-13,900,000 |
| Ghosts of Mars | $28,000,000 | $8,709,640 | $-19,290,360 |
| Escape From LA | $50,000,000 | $25,477,365 | $-24,522,635 |
| Memoirs of an Invisible Man | $40,000,000 | $14,358,033 | $-25,641,967 |
*Thanks to David Wilke who recently contacted us to correct the box-office takings for The Thing. According to David its final gross was unofficial for years and is now credited at the figure given in the table above.
This moves The Thing up two places to sixth most profitable as opposed to eighth.
We've also updated some other figures based on the figures at Box Office Mojo - these changes see Christine just overtake Prince of Darkness in terms of profitability to become number 4 on the list.
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March 12th 2012
Stacie Ponder illustration of Saint Godard's and Alice Cooper!
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Better picture quality version of Prince of Darkness?
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