It may not be receiving the best reviews, with a score of 26% on Rotten Tomatoes at time of writing, but the latest outing in The Conjuring franchise has proven that horror is healthier than ever, and we couldn’t be happier about it.
This weekend, The Nun followed up its spectacular opening with more impressive numbers, bringing its global box office haul to an incredible $209.2 million. Broken down, that’s $85.2 million on home turf with another $124 million coming in from overseas. And with a budget of only $22 million, you can probably imagine how happy the studio is with this.
In fact, The Nun will soon soar past Annabelle, which currently sits at $275 million worldwide, and while it likely won’t beat out fellow franchise films like The Conjuring 2 ($320.3 million) or The Conjuring ($319.4 million), no one can deny that Corin Hardy’s spinoff has been a tremendous success. As Deadline points out, “by tomorrow it’ll have bested all the global cumes of The Purge and Paranormal Activity movies.”
All that being said, not everyone’s too impressed with The Nun. As we mentioned above, critics haven’t been very kind to it, with our very own Matt Donato saying the following in his review:
The Nun avoids such falls from Conjurverse grace as Annabelle, but pales in comparison to top-notch nightmare efforts like The Conjuring or The Conjuring 2. Scares are often on the generic side (pitch-black doorway, hand reaches out), and while some wild effects work enjoys the zanier side of Hell’s mouth opening up to spit venom across Earth’s surface, it’s missing the masterfully torturous tone that Wan’s universe otherwise aims for.
Hardly the most damning words, but it’s clear that this is far from The Conjuring Universe’s best outing. Still, those numbers at the box office speak louder than any review can and with The Nun performing so well with audiences, and projects like The Crooked Man and Annabelle 3 already in the works, fans needn’t worry about this particular cinematic universe going anywhere.
