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Less than two months from its opening weekend, “Hereditary” has recently hit a milestone at the box office. According to Deadline, the film’s $78 million worldwide total is now the top film in the history of distributor A24. And honestly, even though the film is one of the best of the year, it wasn’t an easy road for the horror flick.

READ MORE: ‘Hereditary’ Is A Game-Changing Horror Masterpiece [Sundance Review]

If you’re not familiar with A24, then you should be. For the last few years, the indie distributor has risen in the ranks and become one of the go-to film companies for quality filmmaking. And filmmaker Ari Aster’s “Hereditary” is no exception. On it’s way to the great box office total, the horror film passes the likes of “Lady Bird” and “Moonlight.” However, those two award-winning films had a different distribution deal that made it easier for higher totals.

In the case of “Moonlight,” the film’s international distribution rights were sold off by A24. And as for “Lady Bird,” Universal (heard of them?) came in to take care of the distribution. “Hereditary,” on the other hand, has reached $78 million solely on the back of A24. And As we mentioned before, it was not always clear sailing.

READ MORE: ‘Hereditary’ Director Ari Aster Talks His New Upcoming A24 Horror, A Sci-Fi Film & Many More Projects

While hindsight proves that “Hereditary” really didn’t have anything to worry about with turning a profit, the cards were stacked against it. The film received a ton of buzz coming out of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, where reviewers (including our own) raved that this film was a masterpiece. The ensuing reviews weren’t any worse, with “Hereditary” gaining an 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is huge for a horror film. That created so much hype that many believed the film wouldn’t be able to live up to it.

And then the first weekend hit, and A24 had reasons to be concerned.

Despite the rave reviews and incredible marketing, the film had a relatively weak opening weekend of $13.6 million and a dreadful D+ CinemaScore. That CinemaScore was most troubling, with the grade being calculated from surveys given to audiences during that opening weekend. Anything below a B is looked at as bad. A D+? That’s a death sentence.

Other comparable “arthouse” horror films recently include “The Witch” and “It Comes At Night.” Those films both received bad CinemaScores, with a C- and D, respectively. And their box office totals reflected that, with both drastically underperforming.

However, unlike those films, “Hereditary” ended up having strong word of mouth and dropped less than 50% in its subsequent weekend, which is unheard of for a horror film. This proved that despite the bad score, the word of mouth was actually really strong and an “arthouse” horror film could actually become profitable.

READ MORE: Alex Wolff Isn’t Interested In A ‘Hereditary’ Sequel [Interview]

The best part of all, “Hereditary” isn’t done rolling out worldwide yet. The film still has Italy, Sweden, and Japan left to go. That means there’s no telling what worldwide grosses could look like by the end of the year. But we know this for sure, A24 has cemented itself as an indie distributor powerhouse and not all horror films have to feature hot young actors and jump scares.

Hopefully, “Hereditary” is the start of a horror renaissance. If so, we can’t wait.