The director of 'Terrifier' built his horror movie franchise as a side gig while working as a delivery driver. Now the films have made over $100 million.
Damien Leone spent 10 years delivering flowers while writing "Terrifier" and "Terrifier 2."
Now, after "Terrifier 3," the franchise has made almost $100 million worldwide.
The director Damien Leone said he spent 10 years working as a flower delivery driver while writing the "Terrifier" movies. Now, the ultra-gory franchise has made over $100 million worldwide.
The supernatural slasher movies revolve around Art (David Howard Thornton), a silent and brutal serial killer. To some horror fans, Art the Clown is now as iconic as the likes of Ghostface, Michael Myers, and Freddy Krueger.
The 2018 movie "Terrifier" made $420,000, and 2022's "Terrifier 2" earned $15 million as the hype around the character grew. Then, in 2024, "Terrifier 3" upped the gore — and the returns. The third installment grossed $90 million worldwide, per Box Office Mojo.
Collectively, Leone's twisted creation has now made $106 million.
Leone told Tuesday's episode of "Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum" that many aspiring filmmakers ask him about his path to success in the industry.
"My favorite thing to tell them is, 'Dude, I was writing the script to 'Terrifier 2' in a flower van," he said.
"That was my primary job for 10 years, because I knew I didn't want to dive into a career that would lock me up or keep me away from filmmaking," he added.
The director said that the role was flexible enough that he could focus on freelancing within the film industry, while writing "Terrifier 2."
He added: "I knew I needed a nine-to-five job that I could break away from any time I would get a freelance gig doing makeup effects on a movie or if I was going to go make my own movie, but I would always go back to the flower van.
"I literally wrote the entire movie of 'Terrifier 2' when I was delivering flowers. Almost all the ideas came to me while I was driving that van."
Leone is working on finishing the series with "Terrifier 4," which will dive further into the mythology surrounding the franchise's heroine Sienna Shaw (Lauren LaVera) and Art the Clown.
He said: "I'm going to wrap it all up in the next installment."
Read the original article on Business Insider
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fox News
8 hours ago
- Fox News
Sharon Stone admits her most lucrative gig isn't acting after losing $18M post-health scare
Despite her status as a Hollywood icon, Sharon Stone says modeling still brings in more money than her film roles. "I'm still modeling, and I still make more money today modeling than in film," the 67-year-old told Business Insider in a recent interview. "It's still a huge part of my reality." She added, "I'm still one of the oldest women consistently modeling today. I'm very, very grateful I still get to do it." Stone began her career as a successful model before branching out into acting. She's appeared in a number of memorable films, including "Basic Instinct" and Casino," but she told The Hollywood Reporter last year that after she suffered a stroke in 2001, she was taken advantage of financially. "I had $18 million saved because of all my success, but when I got back into my bank account, it was all gone," she revealed. "My refrigerator, my phone — everything was in other people's names." At that point, she said, "I had zero money." Stone explained that she got through that time by deciding "not to hang onto being sick or to any bitterness or anger. If you bite into the seed of bitterness, it never leaves you. But if you hold faith, even if that faith is the size of a mustard seed, you will survive. So, I live for joy now. I live for purpose." Stone was a relative unknown when she hit superstardom with "Basic Instinct" in 1992, and she's said that she made relatively little from the film. "I'm still one of the oldest women consistently modeling today. I'm very, very grateful I still get to do it." "I put in my contract that I could keep the clothes," she told InStyle in 2022. "People thought I was crazy, but the truth is I wasn't getting paid much compared to my male co-star. I made $500,000; Michael (Douglas) made $14 million. So keeping my costumes was a really smart thing to do." Stone has also complained that it's "very expensive to be famous." "You go out to dinner, and there's 15 people at the table, and who gets the check? You get the $3,000 dinner check every single time," she told InStyle at the time. Even after "Basic Instinct" premiered in 1992, Stone was living on a public-access street and didn't have any security. She said in 1994, following the infamous O.J. Simpson chase, she was visited by officers who told her she could be in danger. Police were unsure of the situation and were taking extra precautions. They ultimately encouraged Stone to find a safer community. "[The police] were like, 'Find a secure house behind a gate.'" The home she bought, additional security she hired and the management team she employed all amounted to a hefty sum. Stone also told InStyle that eventually, she'd likely have to downsize. "Will I make enough money to stay living where I'm living? Probably not. But the kids will leave home and go to college, and I'll sell my big, fancy house, and I'll go live like a normal person. I will continue to make a life."
Business Insider
11 hours ago
- Business Insider
The creator of 'Alien: Earth' challenged himself to invent monsters as scary as the Xenomorph. He thought about what upsets him the most.
The iconic and hideous Xenomorph has ripped, clawed, and munched its way through many helpless victims since first appearing in 1979's " Alien." So Noah Hawley, the creator and writer of the upcoming TV show " Alien: Earth," knew he had to conjure up some new monsters to match the horror of watching "Alien" for the first time, he told Business Insider in London. They include a strange eyeball with tentacles, which appears in one of the trailers. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Eammon Jacobs (@eammonjacobs) "I had to bring back the feeling of discovery of the lifecycle of a creature that every time you thought it had gotten as brutal and awful as it could get, it got worse. And I couldn't do that with a Xenomorph anymore," Hawley said. He approached the challenge of designing new creatures like a game. "You think about, well, what are the things that upset me the most? The bodily autonomy, parasites, all of it. And then you're doing an almost comedic game of what's the worst thing that could happen?" he said. "If they do enough disturbing things, then they become visually iconic, versus trying to make something that looks cool and then adding that in," he added. Hawley was also mindful of making sure the plentiful violence in the eight-episode series didn't become meaningless. Referring to the iconic chestburster scene in Alien, which director Ridley Scott famously didn't warn the cast how gory it would be, Hawley said: "I didn't work at a method level like that for the cast, but what I know at the heart of it is these deaths have to mean something. "And what makes them awful is not just the graphic nature of them, it's who they're happening to and the feelings that go around it." Good things come to those who wait, and for Hawley, horror is no different: "I feel like that horror is all about anticipation. So if there's too much delivery and not enough anticipation, then you've got the balance wrong." "Alien: Earth" starts streaming on Hulu on August 12 in the US and on August 13 on Disney+ in the UK.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Brad Pitt Just Broke His Own Record With Incredible 'F1' Box Office
The Top Gun of 2025 is easily Joseph Kosinski's F1: The Movie. The film, all about the comeback of a Formula One racecar driver named Sonny Hayes, played by Brad Pitt, also stars Damson Idris as Joshua Pearce, a rookie driver who clashes with Sonny. Rounding out the cast are Kerry Condon and Javier Bardem, but millions of people around the world already know all of this. If you're not one of them, then you've missed one of the biggest movie success stories of the summer. In short, F1 is Brad Pitt's biggest, most successful movie to date, full stop. With the massive success of F1, he's broken his previous records of big box office hits, and by a very large margin. Here's how the numbers break down. F1: The Movie Box office, explained As of this writing, F1 is the eighth most successful movie of 2025, with a whopping $546 million at the global box office, according to the latest figures from Box Office Mojo. This puts the movie ahead of all three of the Marvel movies released this year, Captain America: Barve New World, Thunderbolts*, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Produced by Apple, it's also one of the most successful movies coming from that company. F1 is also neck-and-neck with Superman; that superhero reboot has $551 million at the global box office, just slightly ahead of F1 racecars. And, for Pitt, this isn't just a comeback; it's a new Pitt's biggest movies to date Prior to the success of F1, Pitt's most successful movie might not be what you'd expect. According to IGN and other outlets, prior to F1, the Pitt-led movie that made the most money was the 2013 film World War Z, which took in $540 million at the box office. So, now that F1 is ahead of that and still making money, it seems that Pitt has topped himself. At least for now. What are Pitt's most successful movies other than World War Z and F1? Here's the rest of his top five. F1: The Movie (2025) $546 World War Z (2013) $540 million Troy (2004): $497 million Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005): $487 million Ocean's Eleven (2001): $450 million Before F1 hit, this top 10 list would have also included 2019's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which took in $377 million worldwide. A sequel to that Quentin Tarantino film, titled The Adventures of Cliff Booth, is currently filming, and stars Pitt in the title role. Directed by David Fincher, The Adventures of Cliff Booth does not yet have a release date. That said, as reported by Variety, it will likely be released directly on Pitt Just Broke His Own Record With Incredible 'F1' Box Office first appeared on Men's Journal on Aug 5, 2025 Solve the daily Crossword
