'Sinners' Proves Audiences Crave Sex, Vampires—and Fresh Ideas

Kyle Brett had a feeling Sinners, the new supernatural horror from Black Panther director Ryan Coogler, would have a big opening weekend—but he was also hyper aware of the consequences of failure. “It’s already extremely hard to have a successful original horror movie or just any original movie,” Brett, a former Netflix lawyer who currently works as a creative executive at Blumhouse, the production company behind M3GAN, Get Out, and the Insidious franchise, tells WIRED. “If that shit had bombed, original film would have truly gone away.” The night before its US release, Brett predicted on X that Sinners would clear $60 million, based “on nothing but the number of Black folks who have asked me about it.” In the business of Hollywood, nothing is guaranteed, least of all a hit movie that’s based on an untested story. But not only was Sinners a hit, breaking multiple box office records, it’s becoming a full-on cultural phenomenon, complete with memes and literary deep dives. Perhaps mos ... Read full article.