By Andrew Dalton, Entertainment Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) --"The Exorcist: Believer" drove out all foes at the box office, but its numbers didn't entirely make heads spin.
Facing competition from no major new releases, the latest resurrection of the demonic franchise brought in $27.2 million in North America in its opening weekend for Universal Pictures and Blumhouse Productions, according to studio estimates Sunday.
That was more than the weekend take of the next three films combined. But while it nearly earned back its reported budget of $30 million in just a few days, the take for "The Exorcist: Believer" was underwhelming after the two companies paid $400 million in 2021 for the rights to a new trilogy.
Last week's top film, " Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie," was a distant second, with $11.8 million, and has earned $38.9 million after two weekends for Paramount Pictures. Another horror sequel, "Saw X," was third for Lionsgate Films, with $8.2 million, and has brought in $32.6 million after two weekends.
Horror films made up four of the top 10, and they could see some sustained numbers as Halloween comes closer.
"It seems like the demand for the horror genre by audiences is never ending," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore. "The communal theater experience is tailor-made for it."
The new "Exorcist" was released just shy of the 50th anniversary of the original horror classic, and it comes just two months after the death of the original film's director, William Friedkin.
Directed by David Gordon Green, who has become a legacy sequel specialist after helming a trilogy of "Halloween" films, "The Exorcist: Believer" stars "Hamilton" actor Leslie Odom Jr., with Lidya Jewett as his 13-year-old daughter.
The film got poor reviews — managing a critics score of just 23% on Rotten Tomatoes. Jake Coyle of The Associated Press was more charitable than most in his review, giving it two stars out of four for its lead performances and sure-handed direction but saying it "never manages anything like the deep terror of the original."
The release of "The Exorcist" was moved up a week to avoid competing with the juggernaut of next weekend's concert film, "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour."
"I think they made a good call actually," Dergarabedian said. "All the oxygen is going to be sucked out of the room."
The storm of Swifties in cinemas could make for a $100 million weekend and set several new precedents for concert movies.
"This is on an order of magnitude beyond anything we've seen," Dergarabedian said.
The weekend finally saw "Barbie" fall from the box office top 10 for the first time since its July 21 release, after well over $600 million in domestic earnings and more than $1.3 billion globally.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. "The Exorcist: Believer," $27.2 million.
2. "PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie," $11.8 million.
3. "Saw X," $8.2 million.
4. "The Creator," $6.1 million.
5. "The Blind," $3.1 million.
6. "A Haunting In Venice," $2.6 million.
7. "The Nun II," $2.1 million.
8. "Dumb Money," $1.8 million.
10. "Hocus Pocus" (1993 rerelease), $1.5 million.
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More