Annabelle scares up a box office win
Annabelle: Creation, the latest installment in a Warner Bros. horror series, opened as the top movie in North America with sales of $35 million over a slow weekend, easily beating two other new films in wide release.
As for the other newbies, the animated movie The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature, landed at No. 3 and brought in $8.3 million for Open Road Films, while The Glass Castle, from Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., claimed the No. 9 spot and registered $4.6 million, according to ComScore Inc.
The horror feature, a prequel from The Conjuring series, is the third success this summer for the Burbank, Calif.-based film division of Time Warner Inc., which also released Dunkirk, No. 2 last weekend, and Wonder Woman. The summer has been light on horror films, and the studio’s sales were up 2.3 percent year to date heading into the weekend, according to Box Office Mojo, a good performance in a down year for theaters.
Directed by David Sandberg, Annabelle: Creation features Lulu Wilson as Linda,
Lulu Wilson stars as Linda in New Line Cinema’s supernatural thriller Annabelle: Creation. It came in first at last weekend’s box office and made about $35 million. one of several orphan girls who are welcomed into the home of a dollmaker and his wife and then become the targets of the possessed doll Annabelle.
The new film had a built-in fan base. The 2014 Annabelle earned more than $250 million globally on a $6.5 million production budget, according to Box Office Mojo. The movies offer a haunting look into the story of Annabelle, whose debut was in 2013’s The Conjuring.
Hollywood studios have been battling sequel fatigue this summer, with many of their biggest franchise films underperforming predecessors. Analysts at BoxOfficePro.com predicted $30 million for Annabelle: Creation, compared with the $37.1 million registered by the 2014 release. The R-rated film cost about $15 million to make and garnered a 68 percent positive rating at RottenTomatoes. com.
The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature was forecast to debut with $10 million, according to BoxOfficePro.com. Directed by Cal Brunker, the children’s film features the voice of Will Arnett as an animated squirrel who joins with friends to stop the mayor from destroying their home to create an amusement park.
The 2014 predecessor, The Nut Job, was a surprise success, generating more than $64 million domestically, according to Box Office Mojo. Rotten Tomatoes gave the sequel a low rating of 10 percent positive.
The Glass Castle, based on Jeannette Walls’ coming-ofage memoir, opened in fewer than 1,500 locations. With a cast featuring Oscar winner Brie Larson, as well as Woody Harrelson and Naomi Watts, the picture scored a 46 percent positive rating on RottenTomatoes. Analysts at BoxOfficePro.com predicted an opening weekend of $4.25 million.