The Nun easily won the box office in its opening weekend, scoring the biggest debut for a horror movie in 2018. The film is the latest entry in the ever-growing Conjuring franchise, serving as a prequel set before all the other films in the series. Ever since the property launched with the original Conjuring in 2013, it's become one of the genre's most reliable draws. Even the worst-received installment of the bunch, Annabelle, proved to be immensely popular by grossing $257 million worldwide against a measly $6.5 million production budget.

Going into the weekend, it was widely expected The Nun would follow suit and be another big commercial hit for the franchise. Some projections indicated it could challenge for the series' all-time opening weekend record, and it did indeed set a new mark in its first three days - and not just for the Conjuring brand.

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According to Box Office MojoThe Nun earned $53.5 million in its opening weekend. That is far and away the best debut of the five Conjuring films to date, topping The Conjuring's $41.8 million. The Nun also bested A Quiet Place's $50.2 million opening.

Demián Bichir in The Nun

Despite The Nun not exactly being a critical darling, it was obviously able to do very well commercially. That's likely due to the fact this has been something of a down year for mainstream horror. The aforementioned Quiet Place was released back in April, and there haven't been many titles of note in the months since. To be fair, the summer did have some smaller offerings like The Little Stranger, but nothing was on the level of a new Conjuring movie. The combination of the name recognition and a starved marketplace created a demand to see The Nun in theaters, and it's already a huge success. It's already earned $131 million worldwide, far surpassing its $22 million budget. It'll be interesting to see how strong The Nun's legs are, but Warner Bros. can rest easy knowing it's turned a profit.

The weekend's other wide release, Peppermint, played well to its niche and came in third place with $13.2 million. Its lackluster critical reception prevented it from crossing over, and now time will tell if it can make its money back. The three-time defending box office champion, Crazy Rich Asians, continued its impressive performance, making $13.6 million in its fourth weekend. The rom-com is now up to $136.2 million domestically. The top five was rounded out by The Meg ($6 million) and Searching ($4.5 million). The latter rode its positive word-of-mouth to a nice hold, dropping only 25.6 percent from last week.

MORE: The Nun - The True Story Behind The Conjuring Prequel

Source: Box Office Mojo

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