It’s very fitting that a horror film should scare the last bit of significant money out of the summer box office. After some dismal openings the last couple of weeks, we may have a film that should give the box office a little bit of life.
Why is Annabelle: Creation summer’s last hurrah? Because there’s nothing left on the calendar that’s expected to top the opening of the New Line horror title by Labor Day weekend. After giving us the summer’s highest grossing movie Wonder Woman, the sleeper Dunkirk, and this weekend’s Annabelle: Creation, Warner Bros. will literally be responsible for juicing the box office again on Sept. 8 with New Line’s Stephen King feature adaptation It.
It essentially has the box office to itself & even if it comes in at the low end of box office tracking it will still be a win since the film only cost $15 million to make. The first Annabelle was an enormous cash cow with a shoestring production cost of $6.5 million and a total global haul of $256.9 million, roughly 33% of that coming from U.S./Canada. Annabelle: Creation should ultimately send the Conjuring franchise, currently numbering three pics at $895 million worldwide past the $1 billion mark.
The film had been sitting at 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes before grumpy top critics chimed in. It’s still at a solid 72% fresh rating as of this writing which is good for a horror film. All these factors should lead to a weekend between $30-35 million.
Check back Monday for the final box office results!
