‘The Nun 2’ Domestic Box Office Claims Top Spot Despite Tough Competition

For the second weekend in a row, The Nun II has snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Last weekend, the horror sequel held on to its number one spot at the domestic box office despite a challenge from A Haunting in Venice, and this time around, the film is looking to three-peat at the top of the chart after out-performing another new release, Expend4bles. Commercially, the month of September has been unusually underwhelming, with this weekend shaping up to become the lowest-grossing of the year so far.

With an estimated $8.4 million in its third weekend, The Nun II is on the verge of passing the $70 million mark domestically. The movie opened to $32 million in its first weekend, and followed it up with $14 million in its second weekend. While the film has been delivering strong holds, especially for a horror title released in the middle of an industry-wide strike, it’s still nowhere close to matching the record-breaking performance of the first Nun movie, which ended its global run with over $360 million worldwide.

Speaking of sequels failing to live up to franchise benchmarks, this week’s Expend4bles is delivering the lowest opening in the history of the action series, with an estimated $8.3 million across three days. The series began over a decade ago with the very successful The Expendables, which grossed more than $100 million domestically and over $260 million worldwide. The Expendables 2 finished its run with $85 million domestically and more than $300 million worldwide. The Expendables 3 grossed under $40 million in domestic theaters on the back of a pre-release leak on piracy websites, although still managed to make more than $200 million worldwide. Expend4bles was designed as a passing-of-the-baton moment between Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham. Statham is fresh off the success of Meg 2: The Trench, which grossed nearly $400 million worldwide just some weeks ago, but the poor commercial performance of Expend4bles suggest that he might have to dive back into giant shark-infested waters.

There’s an Abundance of Options, But Few Takers

Taking the third spot after debuting in second place a week ago is director-star Kenneth Branagh’s A Haunting in Venice, the third entry in his series of murder mystery movies based on Agatha Christie’s novels. The film is estimated to have made $6.3 million this weekend, for a running domestic total of just $25 million in 10 days. By comparison, Murder on the Orient Express grossed over $100 million domestically in 2017, and its sequel, Death on the Nile, ended its run with $45 million last year.

The fourth and fifth spots went to The Equalizer 3 and Barbie. While the third (and final) installment in Denzel Washington’s action series is estimated to have made $4.7 million in its fourth weekend, the blockbuster Barbie witnessed a boost thanks to an IMAX debut, and added $3.2 million in its 10th weekend. The Equalizer 3 has now passed the $80 million mark domestically, while Barbie just topped $630 million this weekend. Elsewhere, A24 released Jonathan Demme’s 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense in over 250 IMAX locations, and Neon debuted Bishal Dutta’s horror film It Lives Inside to a $2.6 million three-day debut. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.