Wich2 wrote:
>The Mummy flopped big time when it was first released, I don't think it did any better than Rue Morgue while White Zombie was a box office smash.<

With due respect - numbers, please?

THE MUMMY cost $196K according to various sources, considerably less than either DRACULA or FRANKENSTEIN.  I don't have final box office figures but Greg Mank says "THE MUMMY was a great success."  Don't know if he meant critically or financially, or both.  But to break even it would have needed $446K in ticket sales.  The Greenbriar website has a Variety trade ad reproduced and it lists the b.o. take of $80,400 at just six theaters.  It no doubt did pretty well.

WHITE ZOMBIE gets a $50K budget on IMDB, John McElwee at Greenbriar says $62K.  No final box office numbers on this one, either.  McElwee says Lugosi figured the Halperin's made millions, but was Bela any sort of box office expert?  Nevertheless, with a budget that low it could hardly go wrong. 

But reports vary, one source claiming it broke box office records, S.T. Joshi in Icons of Horror and the Supernatural: An Encyclopdia of Our Worst Nightmares says it was "mildly successful."  At $50K it would need $125K in ticket sales, $155K at McElwee's number.  A trade ad for THE DEATH KISS blurts "He made the two greatest box office pictures for the exhibitor in Dracula and White Zombie.  Here is the third."  No mention of MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE which came out in February and has always been noted as a box office disappointment while WZ was released in August. 

Gary Don Rhodes book on WHITE ZOMBIE quotes some box office figures and the erratic success it had, $17.5K in a week at one theater in Washington D.C. during a three week run, 3 weeks in San Francisco, but $3K in other theaters and one week runs, with more than one comment from exhibitors noting how it started strong and then tailed off quickly.

Last Edited By: ryanbrennan May 27 14 1:35 AM. Edited 1 times.