Horror film ‘The Nun II’ conjures $32M in box office despite bad reviews

Like many horrors before it, bad reviews didn’t scare off moviegoers from buying tickets for “The Nun II.”

The sequel to the 2018 hit, released in 3,728 theatres by Warner Bros, has topped the box office in its first weekend in North American theatres earning an estimated $32.6 million, the studio said on Sunday.

AP's Mark Kennedy wrote in his one-star review that it's “a movie that seems destined to pound a nail into this franchise’s undead coffin” and audiences gave it a C+ CinemaScore.

But it hardly matters: Horror is perhaps the most reliably critic-proof genre, at least when it comes to opening weekend.

The Michael Graves-directed sequel starring Taissa Farmiga and Storm Reid fell far short of the debut for the first film ($53.8 million), but it's still a solid launch.

Horror universe

“The Nun” movies are part of the so-called Conjuring universe, which now has nine films, and $2.1 billion in box office, to its name.

The sequel also played well internationally, picking up $52.7 million from 69 markets (Mexico being the strongest with $8.9 million) and boosting its global debut to $85.3 million.

“To have a horror universe is really powerful in terms of the revenue generating potential,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “It’s a great bet that Warners made on the horror moviegoing experience never waning.”

And there are many more scary movies on the calendar through the fall including “A Death in Venice,” which opens next week, “Saw X” on September 29 and “The Exorcist: Believer” on October 6.

“The Nun II” bumped Denzel Washington’s “Equalizer 3” to second place in its second weekend. The Columbia Pictures release added $12.1 million, bringing its domestic grosses to $61.9 million and its worldwide earnings to $107.7 million.

Third place went to another new movie: The third installment of Nia Vardalos’s “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” which arrives 21 years after the first film became a massive sleeper hit earning some $369 million against a $5 million production budget.

Released by Focus Features in 3,650 theatres, the third film earned an estimated $10 million, overwhelmingly driven by female audiences (71%) who were 25 or older (83%).