crimson peak

From marketing to audience expectations, there were a few reasons that ‘Crimson Peak’ might have felt like a failure but director Guillermo del Toro has weighed in on why it didn’t pan out. The Gothic romantic light horror film was released in 2015 and while visually one of del Toro’s most beautiful works, it didn’t woo moviegoers.

The problem, in the end, came down to how much he spent on making the movie as del Toro states:

“If I’d done Crimson Peak for $25 million, the movie would have been a success because it made $75 million. But because I made it for $50 million, it wasn’t a success because it needed to do $150 million.”

While it made money beyond the production costs, there was still marketing and other spending factors that added to the budget of making the film and that is where the movie ended up falling short. Del Toro’s work always ends up developing a cult following but all too often his work stumbles initially on release. Even ‘Pacific Rim’ which made $411 million at the global box office wasn’t considered a hit and barely got green lit for a sequel even though it only had a $190 million budget.

With that in mind, he tried to keep the budget well below that on his upcoming film ‘The Shape of Water.‘ Del Toro initially pitched the film at $12 million to shoot in black and white but Fox Searchlight upped his production funds to $19.6 million to deliver it in color.

Here’s hoping that this one will make a profit.

Do you think that the production budget was the problem of ‘Crimson Peak’ making money or was there another factor that kept it from being a hit? Was the marketing enough to lure you in to see it or did the limited run prevent any chance for audiences to fit it into their schedule? Share your thoughts below!