Low-budget horror movie 'The Conjuring' tops expensive tentpoles

As the East Coast and Midwest endured a heat wave, the spine-chilling The Conjuring performed some magic this weekend as it opened to $41.5 million. Made for just half its opening gross, the horror feature combined great reviews with a stellar marketing campaign to coast to the top. Meanwhile, news wasn't nearly as good for the other three wide releases this weekend, which were far more expensive to make.

DreamWorks Animation's Turbo opened in third with $21.5 million, with a five-day total of $31.2 million. That's a disappointment for the animation studio, which spent at least $135 million in production. Meanwhile, Despicable Me 2, which cost just $76 million to make, racked up another $25 million in its third week, easily outshining the debut of Turbo.

Red 2 posted totals of $18.5 million, a few million less than the original. Older males comprised the majority of the audience. The action feature about aging spies performed similarly to The Expendables 2, which starring aging action heroes. That sequel's opening also dropped slightly from that of the original.

The Men in Black-like supernatural buddy cop action-comedy R.I.P.D. bombed, maybe because it included just too many genres. With $12.7 million, it's slightly better than some projections, which doubted if the movie could top $10 million, but this feature will definitely lead to a big writedown at Universal.

In 353 locations, Girl Most Likely averaged $2,000 a screen for a total of $736,000. That's less than expected for the Kristen Wiig-led comedy, which unfortunately has been plagued by poor reviews. Another star-led indie, Only God Forgives, had double the per-screen average, $4,000, for a total of $315,000. Thanks to the star power of Ryan Gosling, the Radius-TWC release is expected to post strong VOD numbers. Meanwhile, The Way, Way Back continued its slow burn, going up 100% as it added locations for another $2.2 million in its third week. The indie beach comedy will expand into over 650 locations on Friday.

This Friday, Wolverine will lead the pack of new releases, while The To-Do List opens in a moderate 500 locations. Also on the menu is Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine.

'Conjuring' will levitate over 'Turbo,' 'R.I.P.D.,' 'RED 2'

In this busy weekend, four new releases will attempt to woo audiences. Turbo (3,806 theatres) jump-started the weekend by opening on Wednesday, earning $5.5 million. That's just an okay debut for the animated feature, which should earn another $25 million or so in the Friday to Sunday period. The "broad, cheerful cartoon" about a snail that wants nothing more than to be fast
"is more affable
than ambitious, which might make it less-than-essential viewing for
families suffering animation fatigue," predicts our critic Daniel Eagan. Despicable Me 2 and Monsters University have more marketing muscle and buzz behind them, and their Rotten Tomatoes averages are both over 10% higher than Turbo's current 66% Fresh rating. With its mid-July release, Turbo may be overshadowed by these early, strong animated offerings. Plus, Planes will offer even more competition in coming weeks in a very crowded summer for family films.

Sometimes, it's the low-budget movies that earn the most at the box office. That's likely to be the case with The Conjuring (2,903 theatres), which has TV ads that make the release look truly frightening. Supernatural horror movies have been doing particularly well at the box office, and this haunted house movie has yet another thing going for it: verisimilitude. Ads have shown interviews with adults who are supposedly speaking out about their experience for the first time in 30 years, and that original documentary spin will give it that extra boost that helped out Paranormal Activity and, of course, the original is-this-real horror film, The Blair Witch Project. This project, which likely cost just $15 million, should open at least twice at high.

On the other end of the spectrum, R.I.P.D. (2,852 theatres) may have cost upwards of $130 million, but it's been plagued by negative buzz, and its opening may be its grave: under $10 million. Eagan says the story of undead cops protecting the world from evil spirits isn't an "epic disaster," but that doesn't mean it's good either: it "strains to
duplicate the flair and chemistry that flowed so effortlessly from
the MIB franchise."

The cheerfully fun gang of aging spies is back in RED 2 (3,016 theatres). "With this sequel, more-is-more works—every over-the-top moment of
it," says our critic Michael Sauter. The original opened to $20 million, and the sequel should debut at least as high, and have strong subsequent weekends as the grey-topped crowd likely to turn out for this action feature doesn't rush to theatres opening weekend.

Besides four wide releases, there are two notable specialty features. Kristen Wiig stars in Girl Most Likely (353 theatres), but this comedy "shoulda been way funnier, given the talent involved," according to our critic David Noh. The feature will likely go as far as Wiig's name will take it. Ryan Gosling reteams with his Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn for Only God Forgives, but don't expect this movie to be an arthouse favorite. It has great music and visuals, but Gosling acts flatly, and there's no narrative to speak of. This indie drama will draw some interest and also fade out quickly.

On Monday, we'll chart the winners and losers in this busy, mid-summer weekend.