I Didn't See This Coming — And Neither Did You
I'll be honest. When I first heard Stephen King's The Monkey was being adapted for the screen, I raised an eyebrow. Maybe both. It's not that I doubted the story's potential. But The Monkey? That bizarre 1980 short tale about a cymbal-clapping toy that spells death? It didn't exactly scream “record-breaking hit.” Yet here we are.
$64.1 million later, it's officially the highest-grossing horror movie of 2025 and—plot twist!—the most successful Stephen King movie featuring Annie Wilkes, dethroning the Oscar-winning Misery. And how it got here? That's where the real story begins.
The Monkey Didn't Just Climb — It Swung Over Giants
Let's look at the numbers. The Monkey, with a $63 million budget, pulled in $14 million its opening weekend. Not staggering, but solid—especially with the behemoth Captain America: Brave New World hogging the top spot. But then something happened.
Word spread. Fast.
By mid-March, it had topped $64.1 million globally, outgrossing Misery‘s $61.3 million haul and becoming the 12th highest-grossing Stephen King adaptation of all time. That's higher than Carrie. Higher than The Shining. Even higher than The Shawshank Redemption. Yeah. Let that sink in.
The Real Plot Twist? Annie Wilkes Isn't Even the Star
Here's the uncomfortable truth: The Monkey didn't beat Misery by doing Misery better. In fact, Annie Wilkes—Stephen King's most iconic villain, brought to disturbing life by Kathy Bates—isn't even front and center.
She's a babysitter cameo. A memory. A callback. Like Alfred Hitchcock sneaking onto a train in the background, Wilkes in The Monkey is more reference than revelation. And yet, she helped sell tickets.
Why? Nostalgia. And a clever little thing called the King Multiverse.
The Stephen King Cinematic Universe (SKCU?) Is Real — And It's Making Bank
Marvel did it with heroes. King does it with horror.
Castle Rock. Derry. The Overlook Hotel. These aren't just settings—they're landmarks on a shared nightmare map. And savvy fans? They're cartographers. They come ready with Reddit threads and tinfoil hats, looking for Easter eggs like Annie Wilkes.
The Monkey leaned into this. Hard. It knew that mentioning Wilkes—however briefly—would tap into Misery‘s legacy and offer viewers a breadcrumb trail into a wider King-verse.
Like a Netflix algorithm, Hollywood recycles ideas until they're stale. But King's stories? They're sourdough. They ferment. Evolve. Get better when you least expect it.
Osgood Perkins Just Schooled Hollywood
The real mastermind here? Director Osgood Perkins.
The son of Norman Bates himself (Anthony Perkins), Osgood is a genre craftsman. His previous film Longlegs raked in $136.9 million on a shoestring budget. So he knows how to stretch a dollar—and a scream.
With The Monkey, Perkins took a weird little short story, cast stars like Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Elijah Wood, and Adam Scott, and made it feel mythic. Not It-level bloated. Just mythic enough.
He layered psychological dread with spectral horror. Made us care about twin brothers. Made us miss a babysitter who dies in a hibachi restaurant. And yeah, he teased Misery just enough to light the fuse.
Is This the Future of Horror? Old IP, New Blood
Imagine if Quentin Tarantino directed Pet Sematary.
That's the kind of reimagining we're seeing now. Studios aren't just remaking King—they're reinterpreting him. Like jazz. Or TikTok remixes.
And audiences? They're into it.
Why? Because it's familiar, but not stale. King's works are being treated less like books and more like mythology. His characters—Pennywise, Wilkes, Carrie—aren't just horror figures. They're archetypes. Shakespearean. Almost Marvel-like.
And The Monkey proves you don't need to put them front and center. You just need to respect the lore.
But Let's Not Forget Misery Walked So The Monkey Could Run
This win for The Monkey isn't a knock on Misery. That film is a masterclass. Bates won an Oscar. Rob Reiner delivered pure dread without a single ghost or monster. Misery was minimalist horror at its peak.
But that was 1990.
In 2025, horror needs cross-pollination. Intertextuality. Meta-winks. Even a toy monkey that kills you if it claps twice.
So What's Next? A Revival of the Kingverse?
If The Monkey can turn a short story into a smash, what else is ripe?
- Survivor Type? A one-man-show of cannibalistic survival?
- The Jaunt? Sci-fi horror that could make Interstellar look like a beach vacation?
- Night Shift? Anthology heaven.
And maybe… just maybe… a real Misery prequel? A young Annie Wilkes origin story? Think Joker, but for bookworms.
Would You Risk Bringing Back Wilkes? Comment Below.
Annie Wilkes once shattered kneecaps with a sledgehammer and won our hearts. The Monkey just whispered her name and cracked open a vault.
Do you think it earned it? Or is nostalgia doing the heavy lifting?
