#A Quiet Place 2 and The Conjuring 3 Prove Horror Is Still Big at the Box Office

Horror is the genre of the moment this weekend as The Conjuring 3 and A Quiet Place 2 terrorized the top of the movie charts. And the race to be the top box office draw could not have been more nerve-shredding, with The Conjuring 3 only just leading the pack. What is impressive for A Quiet Place Part II is that this is its second week of release, but it is clearly still pulling in strong enough audiences to challenge the James Wan-produced Conjuring sequel on its opening weekend.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It won the top spot away from A Quiet Place Part II, but the margin wasn’t wide between them. The third Conjuring movie, which is actually the 8th movie in the overall franchise, made $24 million over the three day weekend. A Quiet Place Part II still proved to have legs, coming in second with $19.5 million. Paramount Pictures will be pleased with this second week performance for A Quiet Place 2, having already green-lit a spin off movie expected to arrive Spring 2023, as well as talk of another direct sequel also in the works. So far the movie has taken a total of around $88 million thanks to a massive surge of moviegoers choosing to go and see it over last week’s Memorial Day weekend.
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While The Conjuring sequel hit HBO Max at the same time as it arrived in theaters, at no additional cost to subscribers, the second installment in the Quiet Place series doesn’t join Paramount’s streaming service until 45 days after its theatrical premiere. While the effect of streaming/theatrical releases is still relatively unknown, it would have to be assumed that the Emily Blunt movie has gained from not being readily available to watch from home.

When it comes to ratings, A Quite Place 2 massively outranks its competition, having a 96% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes against only 58% for The Conjuring 3. While being slated as the third film in the Conjuring series, it should be remembered that there have also been a number of spin-offs and as Comicbook.com’s Patrick Cavanaugh noted, “there’s little about this film that either sets itself apart from its peers or elevates it to the quality of its predecessors.” A Quiet Place 2, however, has chalked up many critical approvals, with many saying it more than lives up to the first movie thanks to the focus of John Krasinski, who resists the urge to scale up the action in favor of sticking with the tight family story that made A Quiet Place such a big hit.

With such great box office takes for two back-to-back horror titles, we will be seeing so much more from both franchises, with several spin-offs from the first Conjuring in the works. Like similar horror series’ of the past, it seems that as long as the money keeps coming in, then someone is more than happy to keep churning them out. While the Conjuring seems to be losing its spark as far as the critics are concerned, the question is more whether future additions to the Quiet Place franchise can maintain the level of tight focus show in its first two installments.

Topics: A Quiet Place 2, Conjuring 3, Box Office, Movie Theaters