Despite finishing in second place at the domestic box office in its opening weekend of release, the independent horror thriller film Longlegs generated more publicity than did the weekends top film, the animated blockbuster Despicable Me 4. Fueled by a creative digital-based marketing campaign, which gradually built anticipation and momentum for Longlegs over the course of six months, the film, which had a combined marketing and production cost of less than $20 million, caught Hollywood completely by surprise.