Knockout Global Weekend Results Point to the Horror Renaissance

Monica Pagano
Marketing Executive

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

Rarely do studios release horror movies within arm’s reach of one another, acknowledging the very real fear of cannibalsing an overlapping audience.  

But in what is now usual 2021 style, the cinema industry is doing things differently.

New Line’s The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It opened on top of the US Box Office this weekend, claiming $24M USD, and in its second weekend in theatres, Paramount’s A Quiet Place: Part II took in $19.5M USD!

The result for A Quiet Place: Part II follows its stellar debut last week. The film took opened at $57M USD, smashing pandemic-era records. Notably, despite its shifted release date, the film debuted on par with its pre-pandemic forecasts.

Conjuring 3 marks the largest opening for an R-rated movie, and the third-largest overall opening since the pandemic’s onset. The film’s success has catapulted The Conjuring universe – which intertwines with cult titles such as The Nun, Annabelle and La Llorona – to the biggest horror franchise of all time, surpassing $1.8B at the global box office!

Locally, 50% of this weekend’s admits can be attributed to The Conjuring 3 and A Quiet Place: Part II. 64% of this audience were P18-39, highlighting the strong appeal of the horror genre to valuable young audiences.

One thing is clear – the horror audience is no longer niche. It’s all-encompassing, more accessible and more sought after than ever before.