{"id":209482,"date":"2025-09-08T06:00:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T06:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/209482\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T06:00:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T06:00:10","slug":"nbcunis-donna-langley-talks-horror-success-changing-audiences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/209482\/","title":{"rendered":"NBCUni’s Donna Langley Talks Horror Success, Changing Audiences"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSpeaking shortly after her sister label Focus Features made the first big buy at TIFF<\/a> with the Curry Barker directed horror movie, Obsession, for what\u2019s expected to be $15M+, NBCUniversal Chairman of Entertainment & Studios Chairman Donna Langley<\/a>, ever the industry sage, sat down with TIFF CEO this AM for a wide-ranging discussion canvassing the booming horror genre, as well as the changing winds in the motion picture industry. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re seeing the shift in horror,\u201d said Langley about the post pandemic theatrical paradigm at the box office in the wake of Focus Features\u2019 own Nosferatu, but also competitor\u2019s successes, i.e. Warner Bros\u2019 Sinners, Weapons, as well as NEON\u2019s Longlegs. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe success of that film (Nosferatu) demonstrates that there\u2019s a shift in the audience tastes,\u201d she said, \u201cauteur directors turning to horror; it\u2019s not the horror as we came to know over the last decade.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe weirder, the better,\u201d she added, \u201cHorror is always a reflection of our times.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked whether the four-quad movie was still viable, Langley said, \u201cI think the audience is shifting in front of our eyes as we speak.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLook at Wicked: it\u2019s behaving like a four quad movie, but it\u2019s heavily female.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition, large format screens, ala Imax, are a key to success especially with younger moviegoers according to Langley. Those who\u2019ll spend $15 on a movie ticket will go so far as to spend $25 for a more premium experience. She called the younger moviegoers \u201cthe Letterboxd generation,\u201d specifically the booming cinephiles who go to a 70MM movie like Christopher Nolan\u2019s Oppenheimer and watch it more than once, armed with opinions. While Langley spoke about the early sell-outs for the 70MM showtimes of Nolan\u2019s The Odyssey, she didn\u2019t tease anything else about the Matt Damon epic when asked by Bailey.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s an opportunity that comes with its challenges: we\u2019re in a rugby scrum with our competitors who gets those Imax screens over opening weekend.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tWhat\u2019s the recipe for success in Uni\u2019s feature slate? Langley says the underpinnings always start with an animated movie, as well as a couple of all-audience movies (i.e. a Jurassic World or Fast & Furious). \u201cThere\u2019s the everything else bucket from horror to comedy \u2013that\u2019s up and down at the moment, and two original films. Original storytelling and original films always work for us, have always been a good business for us.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tAnd that\u2019s because Universal actually gets behind original movies and enables them to break out in a way that other studios may cut their budgets for margin\u2019s sake. Look no further than the multi-Oscar winning Christopher Nolan movie Oppenheimer which grossed $975.8M. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re not slavish about price point and budget,\u201d said the former New Line exec, who referred as the greenlight for Oppenheimer as \u201cwe didn\u2019t seat that decision; it was priced appropriately.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tOppenheimer was made for $100M before P&A. <\/p>\n

\n\tBailey asked Langley whether she herself ever wanted to be a storytell. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cUm, no,\u201d she responded, \u201cI\u2019m way better at telling people what to do.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speaking shortly after her sister label Focus Features made the first big buy at TIFF with the Curry…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":209483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[114669,171,53,64287,8790,77123,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-209482","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-donna-langley","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-tiff","12":"tag-toronto","13":"tag-toronto-film-festival","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115167154922781983","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}