Top 30 vampire movies by box office

Any fan of the Twilight Saga will not be surprised by the success of all five films, crowding the top five spots. That of course is if you exclude I am Legend, but if the sudo-vampire movie was included it would only displace the first Twilight. And all thanks to Twilight, what could have been a simple top 20 or even 25 list has grown to 30 of the top earning vampire movies. This has allowed Lost Boys to remain included in the list, and yet there are no figures for how much The Lost Boys earned worldwide. Surely the film would have done then same amount on foreign screens, or more as other films have done, though it probably would still not have made the top 20 cut.

So as of the end of 2013, here are the top 30 best vampire movies by the popularly of the wallet. (Stupid sparkling sexless vampires).

Top 30 vampire movies by box office revenue

30. From Dusk Till Dawn – $25.8m
Quentin Tarantino, who wrote the demented script, stars along side George Clooney as the notorious Gecko brothers. Fleeing from the law in a mobile home with a hostage family (clergyman Harvey Keitel, daughter Juliette Lewis and adopted son Ernest Liu), they rendezvous in Mexico at a nightclub that houses a nest of vampires, including stripper-vamp Salma Hayek.

29. Let Me In – $27.8m
The American remake of the Swedish hit holds the second place in our list of top grossing vampire films. Unlike the original, the young vampire is more obviously a girl, and when she moves into the apartment complex, a lonely young boy be-friends her.

28. The Lost Boys – $32.2m* (US box office only)
When brothers Michael (Jason Patric) and Sam Emerson (Corey Haim) move from Phoenix to a Californian surf city they discover the nightlife has more bite to it than their previous home. Keifer Sutherland heads the local motocycle gang of vampires whose initiation ceremony does more than chill the blood and whose motto goes: Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It’s fun to be a vampire.

27. Night Watch – $33.9m
The first of two films from the Russian novels of the same names, Night Watch chronicles the struggle between those who protect the night, all unseen by humans.

26. Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant – $34.3m
In the film adaptation of the Darren Shan novels, written for kids, Cirque du Freak is part fantasy as the vampires are seemingly magical, and sadly fangless.

25. Day Watch – $38.8m
The sequel to Night Watch, the second film follows those who protect the day, as their night watchers counterparts do for the other half of the day.

24. Fright Night (2011) – $41m
The recent Anton Yelchin and Colin Farrell remake of the classic 80s vampire film did better than the original. Charlie thinks his new neighbor is a vampire. He is. Farrell basically eats his way through the neighborhood turning a few vampires until Charlie enlists a stage vampire hunter to help out.

23. Love At First Bite – $43.9
Count Dracula (perma-tanned George Hamilton) is evicted from his Transylvanian castle (developers want to turn it into a gym) and moves to New York in pursuit of Susan Saint James’ beautiful fashion model.

22. Queen Of The Damned – $45.5m* (US box office only)
In this Interview with the Vampire sequel, we follow Lestat’s modern day awakening, his rise as a rockstar and through flashbacks we see how he became a vampire, including the relationship he had with the Queen of the Damned. Played by Aaliyah, Lestat wants to free the Queen from her stone prison.

21. Dracula 2000 – $47m
The count back and the stakes are high. They need to be – the count’s on the ceiling. ‘I don’t drink… coffee,’ drawls Gerard Butler, let loose in America after thieves break open the ‘impregnable’ vault in which antiques dealer Van Helsing (Christopher Plummer) keeps the Count’s coffin. So Dracula finds himself in New Orleans and resuming his tradition of falling for the wrong girl, the type that gets Van Helsing involved.

20. Daybreakers – $51.4m
The year is 2017 and there’s a blood drought after a plague has transformed most humans into vampires. Ethan Hawke is the undead researcher who finds a cure so he joins other former bloodsucker Willem Dafoe to kill off the vampires before his boss Sam Neill bleeds the human race dry.

19. 30 Days of Night – $80.2m
A vicious gang of vampires comes a-calling when the sun goes down for 30 days on the remote Alaskan town of Barow. Josh Hartnett is the local sheriff desperately protecting the terrified townsfolk as Danny Huston’s ravenous crew slowly pick them off. This superior horror from British director David Slade goes straight for the jugular.

18. Vampires Suck – $80.7m
There’s good reason to blame Twilight for this film’s success, after all Vampires Suck is a parody of the first Twilight first (yes, just the first!).

17. Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans – $91.3m
Those feuding vampires and werewolves are still at each other’s throats, with Kate Beckinsale’s vamp warrior Selene caught up in the splattery confusion. Unless she can stop a resurrected vampire king from setting free his ferocious twin, the world will become the shadowy domain of a new breed of bloodsuckers.

16. Underworld – $95.7m
Kate Beckinsale is a vampire enmeshed in a battle to the death between bloodsuckers and werewolves, and it is one man (Scott Speedman) who’s the key to the lycan’s vicious attack on the vampire population.

15. Underworld Evolution – $111.3m

14. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter – $115.1m
Somewhere in Hollywood there’s an evil movie executive who grabbed two genres and through them randomly together. If aliens vs. cowboys wasn’t bad enough, now we have the former American President slaying vampires, yet it grossed over $100 million.

13. Blade Trinity – $128.9m
The third of the Blade trilogy finds our blood-sucking hero up against an ancient blood sucker. With his sidekick killed off, Blade finds himself unwillingly paired up with young hot partners Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biel as they do battle in some American city (it was shot in Vancouver, Canada).

12. Blade – $131.2m
The the half-human, half-vampire warrior Blade is on a mission to murder all the vampires for killing his mother (she was bitten by a bloodsucker during pregnancy, and Blade was bestowed with unique gifts). In walks Stephen Dorff, a bent on bringing global destruction that requires he first destroy the original vampires.

11. Blade II – $155m
Guillermo Del Toro took over the director’s chair for the second Blade instalment, in which the vampire hunter is enlisted by vampires to take on a new breed of blood sucker in the form of Luke Goss’ Nomak.

10. Underworld Awakening – $160.1m
Some years later, vampire Selene is one of the last remaining vampires and after breaking out of a research facility, she needs to return to save her daughter before the werewolves ruin the future even more.

9. Interview With The Vampire – $223.7m
Anne Rice was originally concerned when Tom Cruise was chosen for the role of cruel French vampire Lestat, however the movie did well at the box office, but maybe it was also co-star Brad Pitt. Created by the infamous vampire Lestat, Pitt’s reluctant understudy meets a reporter (Christian Slater) to tell the story of his eternal life, including the child he and Lestat turned and raised, the young Kirsten Dunst who chills the blood as a sensual soul cursed to spend eternity in a child’s body.

8. Bram Stoker’s Dracula – $219.9m
In Francis Ford Coppola’s stylish, sexy and Oscar-winning adaptation of this classic vampire tale. Keanu Reeves took the role of young lawyer Jonathan Harker, becoming captured and imprisoned by the undead Count Dracula in the mists of Eastern Europe. Gary Oldman’s Count then travels to London having become obsessed with Mina, Harker’s betrothed (Winona Ryder).

7. Dark Shadows (2012) – $236.5m
This Tim Burton and Johnny Depp remake of the classic television soap certainly did well at the box office. There’s much less drama, and more comedy, in this new version, but it maintains a pleasing conclusion.

6. Van Helsing – $300.3m
At least there are vampires in this film centered around vampire murderer Van Helsing (played by Hugh Jackman).

5. Twilight – $392.6m
Despite the lower budget and noticeable makeup on Edward, the first Twilight earned enough to secure the three remaining books would be filmed. Bella meets Edward, discovers he’s a vampire, nearly gets turned herself but is sadly saved. There are werewolves too, but they feature more in the further films.

4. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse – $698.5M
Vampire Victoria is pissed about the Cullen’s killing her lover, the one who bit Bella, so she forms an army of vampires to take them on. The werewolves and Cullen’s savage the newborn vampires including former local Riley. Eclipse is the only film in the series to earn less than its’ predecessor (or maybe New Moon made too much).

3. The Twilight Saga: New Moon – $709m
Edward has taken off and Bella is depressed, wouldn’t you be if a vampire left you before you have been turned?

2. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 – $712.1m
Breaking up the last book into two films was clearly a box office success and the story didn’t suffer too much from the two-parter.

1. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 – $796.8m
Securing first place with a massive lead, the final Twilight instalment concluded the saga for Edward and Bella and made just under $800 million (though as of December 31, 2012, there’s still time for that to be broken.

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