Michael Chaves' The Nun II didn't have a particularly impressive third weekend. After putting up decent numbers to report on last Sunday, the new sequel from the Conjuring Universe franchise has seen its weekend-to-weekend ticket sales drop another 42 percent, resulting in a seven figure sum. The results aren't noteworthy... and yet they were enough for the horror film to keep its box office crown in competition with Scott Waugh's Expend4bles.
Check out the new Top 10 results below, and join me after for analysis.
| TITLE | WEEKEND GROSS | DOMESTIC GROSS | LW | THTRS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. The Nun II | $8,400,000 | $69,222,020 | 1 | 3,536 |
| 2. Expend4bles* | $8,300,000 | $8,300,000 | N/A | 3,518 |
| 3. A Haunting In Venice | $6,300,000 | $25,352,729 | 2 | 3,305 |
| 4. The Equalizer 3 | $4,725,000 | $81,261,243 | 3 | 3,270 |
| 5. Barbie | $3,200,000 | $630,450,000 | 5 | 2,634 |
| 6. My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 | $3,000,000 | $23,803,000 | 4 | 3,078 |
| 7. It Lives Inside | $2,630,000 | $2,630,000 | N/A | 2,005 |
| 8. Dumb Money | $2,500,000 | $2,809,875 | 20 | 616 |
| 9. Blue Beetle | $1,810,000 | $69,823,000 | 6 | 1,953 |
| 10. Oppenheimer | $1,630,000 | $321,213,000 | 9 | 1,459 |
The Nun II Crosses $200 Million Worldwide And Becomes The Seventh Biggest Conjuring Universe Movie
Now over a decade old, The Conjuring Universe has proven to be one of the most popular horror franchises of all time, and it's a box office goliath. None of the movies have reported budgets north of $40 million, and they have consistently been huge hits around around the world. Further proving that elite status, The Nun II (which cost $38.5 million, per Vulture) has now become the eighth of nine titles in the continuity to earn more than $200 million globally.
According to The Numbers, the new release has now made $204.2 million worldwide – and that's significant for multiple reasons. Not only does it mean that it has fit a larger trend of success for The Conjuring Universe, but the title has now climbed up a rung in the franchise's overall rankings.
The film's box office numbers have now surpassed those of Michael Chaves' The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, which made $200.3 million during its time on the big screen – though fans will remember that feature was simultaneously released in theaters and on HBO Max as part of Warner Bros.' radical 2021 movie distribution strategy, and that certainly had an impact on domestic ticket sales. The Nun II is now the seventh biggest movie in the canon, and it will need to make another $26 million or so to bump Gary Dauberman's Annabelle Comes Home out of sixth place.
Unfortunately for Warner Bros., the film has no chance at making a play for #1, as Corin Hardy's The Nun made a shocking $363.4 million back in 2018.
It's additionally noteworthy that The Nun II has been holding off its spooky season competition thus far (winning the box office three weeks in a row is an accomplishment by itself). The movie managed to out-duel Kenneth Branagh's supernatural-tinged A Haunting In Venice last week, and Bishal Dutta's It Lives Inside is off to a slow start domestically (as you can see in the chart, it opened in over 2,000 locations this past Friday, but it had to settle for seventh place).
As far as true genre competition is concerned, the film's biggest test is coming this Friday, as Kevin Greutert's Saw X will be aiming to steal away the attention of horror fans.
Expend4bles Has The Weakest Opening Weekend Yet For A Franchise That Has Consistently Shown Diminishing Returns
The box office failure of Expend4bles was pretty easy to predict – and not just because of the brutal bashing that was unleashed by critics when the review embargo was lifted at the end of last week. The truth about The Expendables franchise in general is that there have consistently diminishing returns in domestic box office performance.
Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables kicked things off strong with a $34.8 million start back in 2010 before going on to make $103.1 million in the United States and Canada. But then Simon West's The Expendables 2 had a weaker opening and overall weaker domestic numbers by the time its run ended, and Patrick Hughes' The Expendables 3 did even worse. Nearly a decade later, we now have Expend4bles, and its trajectory does not inspire optimism.
Variety reports that the new sequel had a $100 million budget (not including publicity and marketing), and ticket sales from opening weekend suggest that the film will struggle to outperform even The Expendables 3, which made just $39.3 million from theaters here at home in 2014. We can expect this title to slip down the Top 10 quickly in the coming weeks.
All that being said, the Expendables franchise has always been more successful overseas than in North America. The Expendables 3 may have made less than $40 million domestically, but it made $209.5 million worldwide. Expend4bles is at a disadvantage because its cast is far less star-studded compared to the ensembles featured in the previous titles, so we'll have to wait and see what kind of effect that has. Thus far, the 2023 title has made $10.7 from foreign territories, meaning it has made $19 million globally.
Jason Statham has already managed to pull off an impressive box office miracle this year, with Ben Wheatley's The Meg 2: The Trench having out grossed some of 2023's biggest blockbusters, so we'll keep an eye on Expend4bles in the coming weeks.
Will A Haunting In Venice Be Able To Outpace Death On The Nile At The Domestic Box Office?
As alluded to earlier, things are not going swimmingly at the box office for A Haunting In Venice. The movie had a modest opening that saw it debut behind The Nun II in last weekend's Top 10, and its second weekend numbers aren't what could be called headline-worthy. Sales are down 56 percent, and the film has just made $25.4 million thus far domestically.
It's pretty clear that A Haunting In Venice isn't going to end up being reflected upon as one of the biggest hits of 2023... but there is an open-ended question regarding where it will land in the box office legacy of Kenneth Branagh's Hercule Poirot movies. The new release has no chance of outgrossing 2017's Murder On The Orient Express, which made $351.7 million globally, but it does have a chance of at least doing better than Death On The Nile. The mystery sequel from 2022 made $45.6 million domestically and $130.3 million globally, and those are numbers that the follow-up could still potentially eclipse.
The film already got off to a hotter start than Death On The Nile ($14.3 million vs. $12.9 million), and there is an outside chance that A Haunting In Venice could have strong-than-expected legs in the coming weeks thanks to its horror vibes and the countdown to Halloween. It will need to make $20.3 million more domestically to outperform the middle chapter of the trilogy, and approximately $58.7 million more globally.
Stay tuned here on CinemaBlend in the coming weeks as we track the box office progress of all these titles and more – and be on the lookout next Sunday for the latest edition of this column, which will likely put a focus on Gareth Edwards' The Creator and Saw X.
For a look ahead at all the big films still to be released in what remains of the year, check out our 2023 Movie Release Calendar.
