Last Rites Shatters Franchise Opening Weekend Record (Sunday Chart Update)
UPDATE: 2025/09/07 08:05 EST BY BRENNAN KLEIN
The Conjuring 4 Surges Even Higher Above Its $75 Million Debut Projections
This article was originally written Saturday AM and has been updated Sunday AM with up-to-date box office projections (in bold), a full chart, and further analysis.
The Conjuring: Last Rites is set to smash a franchise record. The movie, which stars Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as fictionalized versions of real-life demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren, is the ninth installment in the Conjuring Universe, which also includes the spinoff franchises Annabelle and The Nun.
The Conjuring: Last Rites release kicked off on September 5, making it the first major wide release movie of September. Previously, it took in $8.5 million at the domestic box office during Thursday night previews, breaking the records for the best opening day of the franchise and the best preview night for a 2025 horror movie to date.
Per Variety, as of Sunday morning, The Conjuring: Last Rites is projected to earn a 3-day opening weekend haul of $83 million at the domestic box office, debuting at No. 1. This will mark the best opening weekend of the entire franchise, beating out the previous record-holder, which was 2018’s The Nun ($53.8 million), by a substantial margin.
This opening weekend also extends Warner Bros. record-shattering streak of opening weekends above $40 million. Although their streak of six in a row (A Minecraft Movie, Sinners, Final Destination Bloodlines, F1 The Movie, Superman, and Weapons) was already entirely unprecedented for a single studio, The Conjuring now makes it seven in a row.
This debut also marks the third-best domestic opening weekend in history for a horror movie, after It ($123 million) and It: Chapter Two ($91 million), both of which were also Warner Bros. titles.
While Last Rites is dominating the box office, another incoming release has claimed a spot just below it. The 10th anniversary presentation of the recorded production of the Broadway smash Hamilton (which originally debuted on Disney+ in 2020) is projected to take No. 2 with a solid $9.8 million.
This marks the first time that two first-weekend titles have occupied the Top 2 at the domestic box office in almost exactly a month, since Weapons and Freakier Friday debuted on August 8. See the full Top 5 chart for the weekend below:
#
Title
3-Day Total
Cumulative (Domestic)
1
The Conjuring: Last Rites
$83 million
$83 million (weekend 1)
2
Hamilton
$9.8 million
$9.8 million (weekend 1)
3
Weapons
$5.3 million
$143 million (weekend 5)
4
Freakier Friday
$3.8 million
$87 million (weekend 5)
5
Caught Stealing
$3.1 million
$14.9 million (weekend 2)
Although Freakier Friday maintained its place at No. 4, the rest of the chart has seen a great deal of movement thanks to the new Top 2. As the Darren Aronofsky crime drama Caught Stealing dropped from No. 3 to No. 5 with a harsher week 2 drop, Weapons was slammed from No. 1 to No. 3, marking its first weekend outside the Top 2.
Because last weekend’s re-release of Jaws ended on Thursday, causing that title to evaporate off the chart, the comedy remake The Roses (which was previously No. 5) is the only title to have been pushed off the Top 5 chart this weekend.
What This Means For The Conjuring: Last Rites
While Last Rites is expected to far outstrip the opening weekend grosses of the previous Conjuring movies (the previous record-holder before The Nun was the original 2013 movie, which debuted with $41.8 million), it still remains to be seen if it can become the highest-grossing movie in the franchise by the end of its run.
Horror movies have a tendency to be frontloaded, with substantial drops of 50% or more in their sophomore weekends, so it will probably be weekend 2 that makes or breaks The Conjuring: Last Rites rather than its opening weekend.
This is borne out by the fact that, while The Nun is the highest-grossing movie in the franchise with a $366 million worldwide gross, TheConjuring is only the third highest-grossing with $316.1 million. Although 2016’s The Conjuring 2 had a smaller opening weekend ($40.4 million), it eventually climbed to No. 2 overall with a worldwide haul of $321.4 million.
Another factor that could potentially limit the performance of the new installment is the fact that The Conjuring: Last Rites reviews earned the movie a Rotten score of 55%, which is the lowest of the four flagship Conjuring movies. Its B CinemaScore is also the lowest of the flagship movies, so it may not build the same level of word of mouth.
Our Take On The Weekend Box Office
Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as Ed and Lorraine Warren looking tense on The Conjuring: Last Rites poster
If Last Rites does manage to avoid a harsh sophomore weekend drop, it could potentially be positioned to break another record for 2025 horror. While Weapons recently became the first horror movie of the year to top the domestic chart for three weekends overall, The Conjuring 4 could become the first to be No. 1 for three consecutive weekends.
This would require The Conjuring: Last Rites to outdo a few major competitors, including the Stephen King movie The Long Walk and the anticipated anime release Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle on September 12 and the Jordan Peele-produced Him on September 19. However, tracking for those movies is low enough that a Conjuring reign is possible.
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