Can ‘Annabelle Comes Home’ Keep ‘Conjuring’ Series Hot at the Box Office?
James Wan’s horror franchise has been a high return on investment for Warner Bros.
Jeremy Fuster | June 25, 2019 @ 5:17 PM
Last Updated: June 25, 2019 @ 5:31 PM
Justin Lubin/Warner Bros.
While “Toy Story 4” is expected to stay No. 1 at the box office for a second weekend, two smaller budget films will try to carve niches for themselves in between the Pixar film and next week’s “Spider-Man: Far From Home.” One is Universal/Working Title’s Beatles-inspired comedy “Yesterday,” while the other is Warner Bros. and New Line’s latest installment in the “Conjuring” series, “Annabelle Comes Home.”
“Annabelle” will be the first to enter theaters, opening Tuesday night for previews before opening on 3,525 screens on Wednesday. Warner Bros. is projecting a five-day opening of $30 million, while independent trackers are projecting an opening closer to $40 million. By comparison, the last film in the “Annabelle” series, “Annabelle: Creation,” opened to $35 million over three days in August 2017.
Since its launch six years ago, the “Conjuring” franchise and Blumhouse have driven horror’s increasing presence at the box office. The genre often yields production budgets below $30 million, the opportunity to release against bigger blockbusters thanks to that lowered financial risk, and a higher return on investment. New Line has stood at the forefront of that, breaking horror box office records with “It,” which grossed $700 million worldwide last year against its $30 million budget.
The five “Conjuring” films have also been profitable, grossing a combined $1.5 billion worldwide against a combined production budget of just $103 million. The series has also allowed New Line, the studio that was known in the ’80s as “The House That Freddy Built,” to reestablish itself as one of the top horror outlets in Hollywood with “It: Chapter Two” coming out in September.
“Annabelle Comes Home” catches up with the infamous doll after Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) placed it in their collection of possessed items after the event of “The Conjuring.” Now, Annabelle brings forth all the evil spirits in that collection, attacking the Warrens’ daughter Judy (Mckenna Grace) after they are foolishly unleashed by her two babysitters (Madison Iseman and Katie Sarife).
Gary Dauberman, writer of the previous “Annabelle” films, returns to write the screenplay of the latest installment as well as make his directorial debut. Critics have been somewhat positive with a 64% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
“Yesterday,” meanwhile, is looking at a quieter opening weekend on Friday as Universal projects a $10 million opening from approximately 2,500 screens. Trackers are projecting an opening in the low teens.
The film stars Himesh Patel as Jack Malik, a down-on-his-luck musician whose life changes forever after a strange global blackout leaves him in a world where nobody has heard of the Beatles except him.
With knowledge of the band’s hit songs, Jack uses them to rise to stardom as the greatest singer-songwriter ever, but risks losing his love Ellie (Lily James) in the process. Danny Boyle directs from a screenplay by Richard Curtis, with Kate McKinnon also starring and cameos from Ed Sheeran and James Corden.
Finally, Disney and Marvel Studios will re-release “Avengers: Endgame” in theaters this weekend, featuring a sneak peek of “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” an unfinished deleted scene, and a special poster of Iron Man’s Infinity Gauntlet available to attendees in select theaters. “Endgame” currently has a global box office total of $2.75 billion, putting it roughly $38 million away from passing “Avatar” as the highest grossing film of all time.
'The Conjuring' Movies, Ranked Worst to Best (Photos)
What began as a modest haunted house story, inspired by the real-life paranormal investigations of controversial figures Ed and Lorraine Warren, has grown into one of the most lucrative horror franchises in years. “The Conjuring” and its sequels, prequels and spin-offs are blockbuster horror movies, but they are not all created equal.
7. "Annabelle" (2014)
The evil doll named Annabelle was introduced in the first “Conjuring” as the most wicked trinket in the Warren Family vault of horrors, but you wouldn’t know it from watching her first solo film. “Annabelle” takes place in the apartment an impossibly boring family, where the struggling housewife (Annabelle Wallis, “The Mummy”) gradually realizes that their newest collectible doll is evil. It’s a film devoid of genuine dread, which relies entirely on predictable “boo” scares to get a rise out of the audience.
Warner Bros.
6. ‘The Curse of La Llorona" (2019)
Michael Chaves’ film wasn’t advertised as an official “Conjuring” spin-off, but one of the characters from “Annabelle” shows up, and there’s a flashback to that infernal doll, so it counts. Unfortunately, this movie isn't very good. Linda Cardellini plays a social worker who accidentally picks up an evil Mexican ghost from one of her clients, and has to enlist an unconventional former priest (Raymond Cruz) to expel the invading spirit. “The Curse of La Llorona” has a few good scares, but they’re repeated ad infinitum, and the story practically flees from the religious and cultural themes that could have given it weight.
Warner Bros.
5. "The Nun" (2018)
Corin Hardy’s “Conjuring” sequel features nifty monster effects and spooky locations, but it plays more like a gothic adventure than a horror movie. And as a gothic adventure, it’s uneven, waffling haphazardly between gross, goofy and grim. Demián Bichir and Taissa Farmiga star as agents of the Vatican, investigating the mysterious death of a nun, only to discover that the isolated convent is actually a prison for an ancient evil. “The Nun” is fast-paced, and certainly never boring, but the total lack of subtlety makes it hard to take seriously, let alone get scared.
Warner Bros.
4. "The Conjuring 2" (2016)
Sequelitis strikes in “The Conjuring 2,” an effective but bloated follow-up that features more demons, more domestic strife, and more audacious shocks. Once again, Ed and Lorraine Warren find themselves in a based-on-a-true-ghost-story: The Enfield Poltergeist, which tormented a working-class family in the late 1970s. It’s a nail-biter, with some standout set pieces and terrifying villains, but director James Wan crams so much content into one film that the pacing can’t help but suffer.
Warner Bros.
3. “Annabelle Comes Home” (2019)
All the demons from the Warrens' creepy artifact room get unleashed, and it’s scary as hell, but that’s not selling point of “Annabelle Comes Home.” Mckenna Grace, Madison Iseman and Katie Sarife take center stage as intriguing, complex, often melancholic teens whose soul-searching slumber party gets interrupted by fantastic and inventive nightmares. Those demons are obviously set-ups for future installments, but the film is satisfying on its own, thanks to a smart script by Gary Dauberman, who also makes his directorial debut. The worst you can say about “Annabelle Comes Home” is that it drags a bit in the middle, but it the bravura third act more than makes up for that.
Warner Bros.
2. "Annabelle: Creation" (2017)
The prequel to the first “Conjuring” prequel is a rollercoaster of a horror movie, a scary and surprising crowd-pleaser that finally does the creepy doll proud. A group of orphans move into a home with a strange family, whose daughter died tragically, and after one of the young girls discovers a spooky doll in the deceased child’s bedroom, all hell breaks loose. David F. Sandberg knows how to build suspense and how to pay off that eeriness in unexpected, popcorn-spilling explosions of nightmare fuel.
Warner Bros.
1. "The Conjuring" (2013)
The original “The Conjuring” is still the classiest, spookiest, most satisfying film in the franchise. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are wholly believable as real-life supernatural investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, who take on a terrifying new job when a troubled, working-class family moves in with an evil spirit. “The Conjuring” subtly builds a mythology while telling a satisfying, terrifying, self-contained ghost story, with a standout performance from Lili Taylor as the matriarch whose pent-up anxieties become disturbing realities. James Wan took the operatic style he developed for the “Insidious” movies, and this time uses it as a counterpoint to plausible, dramatic subtlety. It’s Wan’s best film, and a modern horror classic.
Warner Bros.
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How does “Annabelle Comes Home” rank in the “Conjure-verse”?
What began as a modest haunted house story, inspired by the real-life paranormal investigations of controversial figures Ed and Lorraine Warren, has grown into one of the most lucrative horror franchises in years. “The Conjuring” and its sequels, prequels and spin-offs are blockbuster horror movies, but they are not all created equal.
Warner Bros.
