September won’t have a massive tentpole ala last year’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which opened to $111 million, but we’ll have at least something in New Line’s finale The Conjuring: Last Rites. The horror pic hit three-week tracking Thursday morning at $35M-$40M ahead of its September 5 bow.
Warner Bros has largely owned the post-Labor Day box office frame with a big scary movie since debuting It: Chapter One to the world with $123.4M back in 2017; It remains September’s biggest opening ever. The following year, in the same exact frame, the studio debuted The Nun, which still owns the biggest opening in The Conjuring franchise with $53.8M.
Michael Chaves, who previously helmed The Nun II, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It and The Curse of La Llorona, takes the reins on Last Rites, which follows paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) who take on one last terrifying case involving mysterious entities they must confront.
While The Nun II faced headwinds from the 2023 actors and writers strikes (which prevented talent from publicizing the movie), it opened to $32.6M and ended its domestic run at $83.2M. Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It saw its gross potential hampered by Warner Bros’ theatrical day-and-date pandemic-era HBO Max experiment, with that pic bowing to $24.1M in the U.S. and Canada and finaling at $65.6M. With Last Rites being a full-bodied theatrical release, it’s a moment for a The Conjuring sequel to return its grosses back to their full potential.
First choice for Last Rites is solid among women under 25 and over 25, as well as men under 25. At this point, those figures are way higher than where Alien: Romulus ($42M) and Insidious: Red Door ($33M opening) stood on their respective first days of tracking.
From Deadline.com