The Latest ‘Conjuring’ Chapter Outscares ‘A Quiet Place Part II’ For The Top Spot At The Domestic Box Office With $24 Million
The box office is becoming a scary place these days. And for the first time in a long time, it’s scary in a good way. Just a week after A Quiet Place Part II lured the horror faithful back into darkened multiplexes, the latest chapter in the hit husband-and-wife demonologist saga, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, scared its way to a No. 1 opening in North America with a stronger-than-anticipated $24 million debut weekend.

The latest film in Warner Bros. and New Line’s fright franchise is the third official Conjuring film starring Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as married paranormal sleuths, but the eighth overall when you factor in such spin-offs as the Annabelle movies, The Nun, and La Llorona—which combine to make up what we’ll call The Conjuring Cinematic Universe. Together, they make up the top-grossing horror franchise of all time with $1.9 billion at the global box office. Made on relatively small-scale budgets, the films have found (and continue to find) favor with loyal lovers of scary movies who tend to turn out in large numbers on opening weekend. The Devil Made Me Do It continued the series’ hot streak, beating out early predictions that had the film being edged out by last week’s box-office champ, A Quiet Place Part II. In fact, by the time the weekend’s receipts were tallied up, The Conjuring was in first place by a comfortable margin.

Earning a solid ‘B+’ CinemaScore and a 60% fresh rating with critics on Rotten Tomatoes, the R-rated film unspooled in 3,102 theaters and earned a $7,740 per-screen average—which is especially impressive considering that it was also available on the HBO Max streaming service for no additional fee. And while Warner Bros. did not share the title’s streaming numbers with the press, it did manage to pad its box-office haul with another $33.1 million earned overseas, bringing its combined worldwide box-office total to $57.1 million.

As mentioned previously, A Quiet Place Part II took the runner-up spot, pulling in $19.5 million in its second weekend. Paramount’s PG-13-rated suspense sequel starring Emily Blunt dropped off a stiff -59% from the previous weekend, landing a $5,208 per-screen average in 3,744 locations. Its two-week domestic total now stands at $88.6 million. Should the film continue at its current pace, it stands an excellent chance of beating out Godzilla vs. Kong to become the first film to surpass the $100 million milestone in North America since the COVID pandemic began. Overseas, the nearly-silent thriller has racked up an additional $50 million to date, putting its current worldwide total at $138.6 million.

In third place was Disney’s Cruella, an origin story starring Emma Stone as Cruella De Vil, the infamous puppy-hating villain of 101 Dalmatians. The PG-13-rated film made $11.2 million in its second weekend, slipping -47.7% from the previous session. Cruella, which is also available on Disney+ for an additional $30 fee, earned a $2,866 per-screen average in 3,922 theaters. Its combined two-week domestic total is $43.7 million. Cruella has also piled on another $43.4 million internationally, bringing its cumulative worldwide box-office total to $87.1 million.

In fourth place was the weekend’s only other newcomer of note: Universal and DreamWorks Animation’s Spirit Untamed. The PG-rated animated adventure, which is technically a sequel to 2002’s Spirit: Stallion of Cimarron/link,] but is more closely connected to the Netflix series Spirit Rides Free, bowed to $6.2 million at the North American box office. Thanks to such starry voice talent as Jake Gyllenhaal, Julianne Moore, and Isabela Merced, the kids’ film had a $1,930 per-screen average in 3,211 theaters. It added $1 million from overseas markets, bringing its global box-office total to $7.2 million. For the record, Spirit: Stallion of Cimarron made a little more than $122.5 million at the worldwide box office during its original theatrical run nearly 20 years ago.

Rounding out the top five was Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon. In its fourteenth (!) week, the PG-rated computer-animated adventure tacked on another $1.3 million domestically, sliding -44.2% from the previous frame. Some of that, no doubt, had to do with the fact that the film finally became available for no extra charge this week for Disney+ subscribers. Raya had an $868 per-screen average in 1,504 theaters, bringing its domestic box-office total to $53.5 million.

Meanwhile, the latest Fast and Furious sequel, F9, just keeps shifting into a higher and higher gear overseas. While theVin Diesel-starrer won’t hit North American theaters until June 25, it just zipped past the $250 million line in its first three weeks playing abroad. Its current international gross is $256 million and counting…