Warner Bros. The Warner Bros. horror movie "The Nun" earned more than $50 million in its opening weekend.
“Crazy Rich Asians” finally gave up its box-office crown, but Warner Bros. was still a winner for a fifth weekend in a row, as “The Nun” scared up $53.5 million to post a heathy start to the fall movie season.
The R-rated horror film, a spinoff of “The Conjuring,” opened to the best weekend yet for the franchise, and posted the second-best September debut ever in North America, behind last year’s “It.” Coming in with a production budget of about $22 million, “The Nun” banked another $77 million overseas.
“We knew heading into the weekend that anticipation for ‘The Nun’ was extremely high across multiple demos, but these results surpassed all our expectations,” Jeff Goldstein, head of domestic distribution for Warner Bros., told Variety.
In its fourth week, Warner’s hit rom-com “Crazy Rich Asians” finally slipped from the No. 1 spot, but earned $13.6 million, good enough for second place and $136 million total in its domestic run.
It was the fifth week in a row that a movie from AT&T’s T, -0.19% Warner Bros. topped the box-office charts, following the success of “The Meg” and “Crazy Rich Asians,” and the fourth week in a row its films placed Nos. 1 and 2 — becoming the first Hollywood studio to do so in 25 years.
The Jennifer Garner revenge thriller “Peppermint” from STX finished third, with $13.3 million, followed by “The Meg” with $6 million and the John Cho-fronted mystery “Searching” fifth at $4.5 million.
“Mission: Impossible — Fallout,” from Viacom’s VIA, +1.22% Paramount Pictures, took in $3.8 million as it topped the $700 million mark and became the top-grossing installment of the franchise.
