It’s not just British horror fans who have been left bereft. “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” was co-produced by Indian studio Reliance Entertainment, which had a theatrical release in India planned for August. However, like the crew of the Demeter, that release date has eerily disappeared, and it’s unclear how or when the movie will be released in India.
Staggered international releases are unfortunately common in the horror genre, where distribution rights tend to be sold to different buyers country-by-country. In Spain, for example, “El último viaje del Demeter” is set to be released by Diamond Films, whose website only says that it’s “próximamente” (coming soon), with no specific release date info.
This haphazard approach isn’t just frustrating for international moviegoers; it also puts a serious dampener on horror movies’ box office potential. Last year, Zach Cregger’s “Barbarian” grossed more than $40 million at the domestic box office, but scarcely a tenth of that from overseas markets. It released in only a handful of countries outside the United States, and didn’t make it to UK cinemas until three days after it had already landed on streaming and VOD in the US (and, by extension, on pirate movie websites everywhere else in the world).
Given the weak returns for “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” at the domestic box office, strong overseas ticket sales are the one thing that could have saved this pricey $45 million production from being a total box office bomb. Now, it looks like this ship is heading straight for the rocks.