For those who still miss my Wonder Woman updates, the Gal Gadot superhero movie has now earned exactly $402.6 million as of Tuesday. It should cross $403m on Thursday and pass the (unadjusted) $403.7m domestic total of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man over the weekend. But this is not about Wonder Woman necessarily. No, this is about the other big Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc. hit this summer. No, not Chris Nolan's Dunkirk ($156m-and-going strong), but Annabelle: Creation. The Conjuring universe prequel to the prequel opened this weekend with $35m, which is impressive considering how close it was to the $37m debut of Annabelle and how not-that-far it was from The Conjuring 2 ($40m last summer). But here’s the rub: After just two weekdays, Annabelle: Creation is now ahead of Annabelle in total domestic box office.
The original (and poorly-reviewed) Annabelle opened in October of 2014 with $37 million on opening weekend, even as David Fincher’s think piece-friendly Gone Girl swiped every ounce of media oxygen in the room. The film earned $2.308m on Monday and $2.674m on Tuesday, giving it a $42.116m five-day total. That would be about half of its eventual $84m cume, which wasn’t bad for a $6.5m New Line Cinema release. But the (better-reviewed) prequel to the prequel (that may be a first) earned $35m over its Fri-Sun frame and then $3.622m on Monday and $4.535m (+25%) on Tuesday for a five-day total of $43.164m. So despite a $2m opening weekend deficit, David F. Sanders’ Annabelle movie is now tracking ahead of John R. Leonetti’s Annabelle movie.
Yes, Creation got better reviews and is a better movie than the 2014 installment. It also offers a reminder of why the summer movie season still matters. One big reason why the first two weekdays were so much bigger than last time is that the kids are still mostly out of school. Say what you will about the many successful off-season blockbuster debuts (Gravity, The LEGO Movie, Furious 7, Deadpool, Beauty and the Beast, etc.) of late, but it still helps when a movie gets to play at a time when the kids can treat a Tuesday like it was a Saturday. Even as the year seems to be dominated by movies released outside of the summer season, Hollywood still values June-to-August real estate.
It can’t save a megaton bomb (King Arthur was doomed no matter when it opened), but the summer season can provide robust legs to movies like Wonder Woman ($103 million opening/$404m+ domestic finish), Finding Dory ($135m/$486m), Jurassic World ($208m/$652m), Edge of Tomorrow ($28m/$100m), World War Z ($66m/$201m), The Dark Knight Rises ($160m/$448m) and Rise of the Planet of the Apes ($54m/$181m). That is one reason why Wonder Woman became the leggiest “opened on a Friday” $100m+ opener of all time. It is part of why you get super-duper leggy animated blow-outs like Shrek 2 ($108m/$441m), Finding Nemo ($70m/$339m) and The Secret Life of Pets ($104m/$368m). Even as we get huge movies opening all year-round, summer still has value thanks to kids with three months of free time.
As old-fashioned as it seems, there is still a sizable demographic that still views theatrical moviegoing as an excuse to spend a few hours in an air conditioned auditorium in the sweltering summer months. Big movies that open outside of the school year (and outside of extended holiday periods) can still have an advantage compared to films that don’t. It’s part of why The Conjuring managed a huge 3.34x multiplier in July of 2013 ($41m/$137m). It’s partially why The Avengers was such a fluke, namely an early May biggie that had legs like a mid-June biggie. And it’s partially why the two leggiest MCU movies thus far are the two (Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man) that opened in the heart of the summer season.
So we’ll see how this plays out over the next week or so. But if Annabelle: Creation ends up earning more in North America than the $84m snagged by Annabelle three years ago, it won’t just be because it’s a better, more popcorn-flying scary horror romp. It will partially be because it will have at least another week or two of weekdays that play like weekends for kids old enough to see an R-rated movie. So yeah, Beauty and the Beast and Star Wars: The Last Jedi are probably going to be the biggest movies of the year. And yeah Logan made $619m worldwide with a March opening. But the summer season can still make magic for the right movies.
