New Line Cinema has not produced a box office moneymaker this year on the level of Legendary’s “A Minecraft Movie” or DC Studios’ “Superman,” but Warner Bros.’ incredible box office hot streak over the past five months would not have been possible without the studio known as “The House That Freddy Built.”
Forty-one years after “Nightmare on Elm Street” put it on the map, New Line — a subsidiary of the Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group — is enjoying an extremely successful year at the box office capped off with the projection-smashing $84 million domestic/$194 million global opening weekend of “The Conjuring: Last Rites.” Combined with the $123.4 million opening of “It” in 2017 and the $91 million opening of its “Chapter Two” follow-up, New Line and Warner Bros. now own the top three highest horror openings in box office history.
As of Sunday, New Line’s four horror films this year — “Companion,” “Final Destination: Bloodlines,” “Weapons” and “Last Rites” — have combined for $768 million and counting. (“Companion,” however, is considered a disappointment.) That’s roughly 20% of the $3.7 billion in global grosses earned by Warner Bros. since January.
The contribution from New Line underscores the importance of having a deep roster of films in different genres, and why a studio can’t just count on the standard franchise blockbuster to bring audiences in. Like Universal has done in many years past— and which Warner also did in 2018 with hits ranging from “Crazy Rich Asians” to “A Star Is Born” to “Aquaman” — this hot streak has come from a variety of films with various genres and budget sizes, and New Line has been key to that flexibility.
“New Line is an essential partner,” Jeff Goldstein, Warner Bros. distribution chief, told TheWrap. “Their ability to tap into the zeitgeist more than anyone is extraordinary. They have the special sauce and they understand horror.”
The three hit New Line films, while all horror, are quite different. “Final Destination: Bloodlines” is a successful revival of a franchise that had been dormant for 15 years. “Weapons” is an original horror film from a rapidly rising director in Zach Cregger. And now there’s “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” which cashed in on 12 years of passion for the universe built by series creator James Wan and producer Peter Safran.
In addition, these films all boasted modest budgets, making them safer bets for the studio. The quartet of movies had a combined reported production budget of $153 million, slightly more than the $150 million of the near-$1 billion grossing “Minecraft.”
“It used to be that with horror films, maybe you’re going for a big opening weekend but don’t expect longterm grosses. It’s a smash and grab,” said Comscore analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “New Line has made films that have fulfilled audience expectations and have played for weeks, and that has led to franchises and director partnerships that have played for years.”
“Dynamic duo”
While the film hasn’t been as glowingly received as the first two “Conjuring” films released a decade ago, “Last Rites” was sold to fans with a marketing campaign that promised it would be the final chapter of the story of Ed and Lorraine Warren, the demonologists played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga.
Horror films are often sold by their iconic, murderous villains, but every once in a while there’s one driven by the heroes, like Bruce Campbell’s Ash in “Evil Dead” and Neve Campbell’s Sidney Prescott in “Scream.” “The Conjuring” may have spawned spinoffs around occult foes like “Annabelle” and “The Nun,” but it’s now clear that the Warrens are also an essential part of the recipe for success.
But for Safran, that was something he’s known for a long, long time.
“The truth is that from their very first reading together, we knew we were capturing lightning in a bottle with Patrick and Vera. They create something together as Ed and Lorraine that feels very true and deeply personal, which makes the horrors and the battle that much more terrifying for the audience,” Safran told TheWrap.
“That is really down to the astonishing skill and fantastic chemistry between these wonderful actors, and the powerful connection they create with audiences as these characters. The magic is why I believe these films have been so successful, and why Ed and Lorraine Warren are now considered among the all-time greatest heroes in this genre,” he continued.
Another key element has been its early September release date, one that New Line and Warner Bros. also used as a launch point for the “It” films and several other horror titles. Goldstein says that the studio realized several years ago that launching a film the weekend after Labor Day can be a major draw for audiences despite the fact that it is back-to-school time.
In fact, he believes New Line horror works in this slot because kids are going back to school, specifically for high school and college students.
“We realized that with teens and young adults back in school, they are back with their friends again and maybe they want to do something together over the weekend,” he said. “Putting a horror film out to give those teen and young adult audiences something to talk about really amplifies the word-of-mouth.”
And it’s not just with back-to-school horror that Warner has capitalized on this. “A Minecraft Movie” got the ball rolling on Warner’s streak of seven straight $40 million-plus openings by coming out around Easter. Yes, some kids were on their spring break on its opening weekend, but Goldstein believes that one of the reasons why the film got such massive turnout from kids is that they also drew in students whose spring break had already passed and who were making “chicken jockey” jokes before class.
“It’s their form of the watercooler conversation,” he said.
Killer marketing
New Line’s success can also be attributed to some very smart marketing with its three hit films. “Weapons” became a late summer hit thanks to a campaign that leaned into the mystery aspect of its plot. The film’s opening monologue from a child introducing the story — all but one child from an elementary school class run into the forest at 2:17 a.m. and disappears — became the elevator pitch that was featured in every trailer, poster, billboard and viral ad for “Weapons,” inviting moviegoers to buy a ticket to see the reason behind the horrific disappearance.
It paid off. The R-rated “Weapons” has grossed $251.5 million worldwide after five weekends against a $38 million all-in budget and has boosted Zach Cregger’s notoriety as he prepares to take his first steps into franchise filmmaking with his next project, a “Resident Evil” film for Sony. For Warner Bros., it was the sixth of now seven films in that $40 million+ opening streak, the longest for any studio in history.
“Last Rites,” conversely, had a pretty straightforward selling point: This is the Warrens’ last case. Come to the theater to bid them a frightful farewell.
“Final Destination: Bloodlines” also had a similarly straightforward campaign, promising longtime fans more of the Rube Goldberg kills they’ve come to expect in its trailers and digital ads. But Warner and New Line went further with some creative ads like one placed on a log truck driven around Los Angeles, a reference to the infamous highway disaster in “Final Destination 2” that quickly went viral among fans and introduced the film to younger moviegoers who hadn’t seen the series in theaters.
But original horror requires a different approach, and sometimes the nature of the film in question doesn’t always lend itself to easy marketing. Take New Line’s one box office disappointment this year, “Companion,” a critically acclaimed early-year thriller about a woman named Iris who spends a weekend getaway with her boyfriend, only for it to be revealed in an early twist that she is actually a companion robot bought by her supposed boyfriend and under his total control.
Because that twist defines the whole plot, “Companion” had to hide it in its marketing campaign, which instead tried a tongue-in-cheek approach selling the film as a “new kind of love story from the creators of ‘Barbarian’” and offering just slight teases of the horrors to come. But that campaign and the strong word-of-mouth weren’t enough to sell moviegoers who didn’t have a grasp on the plot.
One hit after another?
The success of New Line’s films may spill over to other movies on Warner’s list, specifically one that has become a part of studio chiefs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy’s campaign to bring high-budget, auteur-driven original films to the big screen.
That movie is Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” a $100 million action thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Benicio Del Toro that has had its trailer play in front of “Weapons” and “The Conjuring: Last Rites” for the past month. It’s often repeated, but it’s true: box office is fueled by momentum, and seeing trailers in a theater before a hit film is the most effective way to build interest in coming attractions.
“One Battle After Another” needs to build that interest. While Anderson has his cinephile following, he is not as well known as Ryan Coogler, whose clout among moviegoers, particularly Black audiences, made him into an active part of the online campaign for his acclaimed spring hit “Sinners,” enabling Warner to not have to rely on a plot-heavy marketing campaign per the filmmaker’s wishes.
The most recent trailer for “OBAA” is more plot-driven, showing DiCaprio as a revolutionary fighting to rescue his family in a way that concisely conveys the story along with plenty of explosions, gunfire and dry humor. We will find out on Sept. 26 whether enough of the moviegoers who saw it in front of New Line’s fare are inspired to come back and give another original film a try like they did “Sinners.”
Whether or not it does, WB has already earned its best box office year since 2018, when it reached a domestic total of $1.93 billion. Had the studio kept New Line’s “Mortal Kombat II” in its October release slot, it may have had a chance at matching that mark combined with “One Battle After Another” and the coming holdover grosses for “Last Rites.”
Instead, Warner is looking to “MK II” to be a hit among adult gamers nostalgic for the violent fighting game franchise in May 2026, where it will be released without the competition of a Marvel film as “Avengers: Doomsday” has moved to December of next year. Other New Line films for 2026 include the gory “Evil Dead Burn” and Lee Cronin’s “The Mummy,” co-produced by Blumhouse/Atomic Monster.
But New Line’s influence on Warner’s future goes beyond that. Along with whatever future “Conjuring” films may come, Safran is overseeing the development of DC Studios alongside James Gunn with films like “Supergirl,” “Clayface,” and the freshly announced “Superman” sequel “Man of Tomorrow.”
Studio sources say that along with producing superhero films at a relatively lower price like “Shazam!” through New Line, it was Safran’s experience with cinematic universe building through “Conjuring” that gave him the nod to run DC.
“When James Wan and I were making the first ‘Conjuring’ films, we naturally wanted to experiment and keep the stories and characters fresh. At the same time, what became clear to us then and is equally clear to James Gunn and myself now at DC Studios is how important it is that we listen to our audience, and let them tell us what excites and resonates most with them,” he said. “For example, when we made ‘The Conjuring 2,’ our thinking was that the audience would latch onto The Crooked Man, but it turned out to be a spooky nun we added in reshoots.”
“The rest, as they say, is ‘Conjuring’ history.”
