The Nun 2: $32.6 million at the US box office

From Barbie to the demonic nun. After Greta Gerwig’s rosy-hued film about a Mattel doll poised to dominate the summer movie season, it’s time for horror for audiences. In fact, The Nun 2, also from Warner Bros., is number one on the US charts and has grossed a good $32.6 million. An excellent result for the spin-off of “The Conjuring”, which thereby outweighs the third chapter of “The Equalizer” with Denzel Washington, which managed to earn more than 12.1 million in its second weekend in theaters, thus amounting to about 62 million. What’s happening in Italy instead? Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer remains in the lead, with Michael Chavez’s horror in second place with earnings of €3 million.

What do these data say, especially for foreign cinema? Horror is becoming a safer alternative. Especially after the pandemic. This is evidenced by the success of some games in recent years. After repeated delays due to the virus, John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place Part II, starring Emily Blunt, managed to gross a good $48 million in its opening US weekend, soon becoming the first film to surpass Covid $100 million domestically. If we take into account data from other countries, it amounted to 297.4 million. Instead, The Conjuring – By Order of the Devil grossed $24 million in its opening weekend, reaching $200 million worldwide. Not bad for a 39 million game. If Parker Finn’s Smile, in his directorial debut, was a big success in 2022 with over $200 million on a budget of just $17 million, then this year’s is another interesting title. In addition to the sixth chapter of Scream with Jenna Ortega, the main character of the series Wednesday, which became the chapter of the saga with the best figures at the US box office (108 million). This is M3GAN. Arriving in theaters earlier in the year at the height of the Avatar phenomenon, despite being conceived as a decidedly smaller project with an even smaller $12 million cost, it managed to secure blockbuster status, grossing $180 million. . An incredible success that led to the announcement of a sequel scheduled for January 2025.

Future? Saw Fifty years after the cult of William Friedkin, who died just over a month ago, the turn of “The Exorcist – the Believer” will come. David Gordon Green stepped behind the camera to direct a live-action sequel that picks up what happened after all this time, with Ellen Burstyn returning as Chris McNeil. The goal is to create a new trilogy, as the director did with the Halloween reboot. It’s clearly an expensive operation, as Universal invested $400 million into making it. An Eli Roth Thanksgiving is scheduled for November in the US, born from a fake trailer contained in the 2007 film Grindhouse, made by the director with Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Edgar Wright and Rob Zombie. Bryce McGuire’s Night Swim is sure to be the talk of the town, considering it has producers M3GAN, Blumhouse’s Jason Blum, and Atomic Monster’s James Wan behind it. Plus supernatural horror The Watchers, written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan’s daughter Ishana in her big screen debut.

Horror cinema is profitable. They increase projects, even budgets, if necessary. Action scenes are no longer enough as an end in themselves, as in Mission: Impossible. People seek collective emotions. Fear is the right direction.