by Conan Simmons – June 8, 2021 – 9:04 pm
Horror fans rejoice as the two top spots on the Weekend Box Office Top 5 go to popular horror sequels, ‘The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It’ and ‘A Quiet Place Part 2’ which relinquishes the number one spot.
The third film in the ‘Conjuring’ series and the eighth film overall for the franchise continues to follow the paranormal adventures of demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren, played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. Of all of Hollywood’s attempts to replicate the success of the shared universe of Marvel comic book adaptations, ‘The Conjuring’ franchise is the only one to truly compete, though not without some bumps along the way (e.g. ‘The Curse of La Llorona’).
A day-and-date release on HBO Max, the success of ‘The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It’ at the box office indicates that movie lovers will continue to opt for movie theaters as opposed to streaming.
For further evidence of the lack of success of HBO Max the streaming service recently launched an ad-supported version for a $10 per month subscription fee. The streaming service continues to have problems as the season finale of Kate Winslet’s ‘Mare of Easttown’ blacked out before the end due to the service unable to handle the internet traffic. It’s reminiscent of the myriad of problems users had late last year when ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ premiered on the service.
Perhaps the upcoming merger with Discovery+, which will rename the company Warner Bros. Discovery, will smooth out the problems with the streaming service.
HBO Max isn’t the first streaming service to consider charging subscribers for an ad supported tier. Netflix has flirted with the idea for years but never had to implement the idea due to their continued success as one of Hollywood’s top streaming services, followed closely by Amazon Prime.
Disney+ which is still a newcomer to the streaming wars has promptly forced its way to the top of the competition. However, its success hasn’t prevented day-and-date releases of films such as ‘Cruella’ from having its box office show lackluster results. Though their animated hit ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ has managed to stay in the Weekend Box Office Top 5 for fourteen consecutive weeks! How much more could it have made had it been a theaters only release?
The weekends other major release is the animated film ‘Spirit Untamed’ featuring the voices of Isabela Merced, Mckenna Grace, Eiza González and Jake Gyllenhaal.
Horror films and animation are America’s favorite genres for the first half of 2021.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE TOP 5 (June 4-6, 2021)
- ‘The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It’ – $24.1 million – horror (debut)
- ‘A Quiet Place Part 2’ – $19.3 million – horror (drop $37.7 million, 66% decline)
- ‘Cruella’ – $11 million – family (drop $15.5 million, 58% decline)
- ‘Spirit Untamed’ – $6.1 million – animated (debut)
- ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ – $1.3 million – animated (drop $1.4 million, 52% decline)
Total for the Weekend Box Office Top 5 comes to $61.8 million. It is a 33% decline, or a drop of $29.8 million, from last weekends total of $91.6 million.
The box office is expected to be shaken up a bit next weekend with two major releases, the animated sequel ‘Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway’ and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical ‘In the Heights’.