Despite breaking franchise box office records, the first entry in a trilogy set to cost north of $500 million is already looking a bad investment

Having debuted to an estimated worldwide opening weekend of $27 million domestically and $45 million globally to set new franchise records, it would be easy to assume that The Exorcist: Believer is on its way to box office success and immense profitability having already recouped its budget.

However, almost the exact opposite is true, with Universal a million miles away from seeing a return on the investment that saw the studio shell out $400 million for the rights to the property and announce a brand new trilogy. When you factor in the production costs along with marketing and distribution expenses, then David Gordon Green’s latest legacy reinvention of a classic horror saga is going to cost well over half a billion dollars when all is said and done.

Being widely-panned by critics and crowds alike is hardly a great start, either, with Believer holding 23 and 57 percent approval ratings on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing. For a commercial comparison, the latest Exorcist opened well below the $76 million of Gordon Green’s Halloween, not to mention the $49 million and $40 million of Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends, both of which also debuted day-and-date on Peacock to place them at a theatrical earnings disadvantage.

It may have only been playing on the big screen for a matter of days, but if The Exorcist: Believer continues on its current trajectory, then spending a quite frankly insane amount of money on a trio of supernatural terrors is going to end up looking like a terrible business decision for all involved.