Warner Bros. has achieved what Variety calls a “box office history” moment: seven consecutive releases opening to $40 million or more, a feat clinched by The Conjuring: Last Rites’ franchise‑best $83 million domestic debut. The horror sequel’s global opening reached $187 million, underscoring how a well‑timed genre hit can amplify a studio’s momentum and extend a winning streak across multiple tentpoles.
What The Conjuring: Last Rites delivered
The Conjuring: Last Rites opened to an estimated $83 million domestically, marking the third‑biggest horror opening ever behind It (2017) and It: Chapter Two (2019), both of which were also Warner Bros. releases. Worldwide, the film launched to $187 million, with a particularly strong international component that set a new overseas horror opening benchmark for the year, according to trade tallies. The debut notably outperformed pre‑release projections and lifted the broader market during an otherwise softer period on the calendar, which often favors breakout genre wins.
Why this streak is genuinely rare
Seven straight $40M‑plus domestic openings is unprecedented in the post‑pandemic era, reflecting a unique blend of slate depth, date placement, and targeting of fan‑forward brands that can mobilize audiences on opening weekend. Industry watchers point out that streaks of this kind have historically broken on mid‑tier titles or sophomore weekends, but Warner Bros. kept pace with a run that included a mix of horror, action, and event‑scale releases across multiple months. That consistency matters in a marketplace still normalizing, signaling studio execution across marketing, distribution, and IP strategy—not just isolated success from a single four‑quadrant behemoth.
The films that formed the backbone
Coverage summarizing the streak points to a lineup anchored by event titles and genre precision, with The Conjuring: Last Rites becoming the “seventh” $40M+ opener in a row for the studio. Trade and industry roundups name previous 2025 contributors like A Minecraft Movie, F1: The Movie, Superman, Final Destination: Bloodlines, Sinners, and Weapons—collectively spanning four‑quadrant appeal and horror’s reliable opening‑weekend engine. By stacking brands that deliver strong preview‑to‑Friday conversion and front‑loaded demand, Warner Bros. prolonged a run few studios have managed since 2020, especially at this length and velocity.
Horror’s central role in the bounce
Analysts note that 2025 horror box office surpassed $1 billion domestically even before the fall corridor fully unfolded, with The Conjuring: Last Rites providing a fresh jolt to a historically resilient genre. Horror has consistently outperformed tracking when audience appetite meets familiar brands, and it often thrives irrespective of critical variance, making it an ideal anchor for sustaining multi‑title momentum between broader crowd‑pleasers. Warner Bros.’ horror pipeline—spanning The Conjuring universe and titles like Final Destination: Bloodlines—has been a strategic pillar in maintaining frequency and opening‑week wins.
Why this matters for WB’s 2025 positioning
The streak bolsters Warner Bros.’ share leadership in domestic and international markets so far this year, as tallied by trades on weekend reporting cycles. Strong openings are only one measure, but they are a key indicator of marketing effectiveness and brand vitality, often translating into premium format uptake and early runtime advantages before competition intensifies. For a studio, a run like this also stabilizes downstream windows, supporting PVOD cadence and streaming pipelines with fresh tentpoles arriving at regular intervals.
Context: a market still in recovery mode
Theatrical has rebalanced but remains sensitive to slate gaps and genre clustering, making consistent openings across several frames noteworthy beyond raw numbers. Across 2025, analysts have highlighted spikes around event weekends yet caution that audience behavior is still elastic, with outsize gains for recognizable IPs and performance volatility for riskier originals. The Conjuring: Last Rites shines in this context: a familiar brand hitting a best‑ever franchise opening while lifting total market volume during a quieter month.
How Warner Bros. sustained consistency
- Portfolio design: Mixing four‑quadrant tentpoles (e.g., Superman) and fan‑forward genre titles (e.g., The Conjuring: Last Rites and Final Destination: Bloodlines) to sustain “appointment” behavior across different audience segments.
- Date strategy: Leveraging windows like early September, which historically can be opportunistic for horror, to amplify word‑of‑mouth and avoid direct four‑quadrant pile‑ups.
- Brand compounding: Each opening reinforced the next by keeping the studio front‑of‑mind, which trades identified as a driver behind the “seventh in a row” threshold.
Why The Conjuring brand still resonates
The franchise delivers a familiar investigative‑haunting rhythm with returning leads and a production imprint that signals consistent thrills, helping audiences pre‑commit early in the cycle. Trades note that “finale” framing tends to spike urgency, and the series’ prior high marks (e.g., The Nun opening at $53.8M) provided a clear benchmark that Last Rites ultimately topped by a wide margin. Even as horror can be front‑loaded, The Conjuring’s cross‑generational identity and broader international pull position it better than many one‑off genre entries for sustained playability.
What could temper the celebration
Front‑loading remains the norm for horror, so legs will depend on audience scores, competition, and premium screen retention as other titles cycle in. Additionally, the streak’s durability from here depends on maintaining cadence and avoiding date congestion that siphons off opening‑weekend urgency, particularly once family, awards, and holiday titles arrive. Still, the rarity of seven $40M+ openings in a row gives Warner Bros. headroom to weather a softer debut, should one occur, without puncturing the larger 2025 narrative.
What this signals for the industry
Studios will likely keep leaning into eventized genre staples interspersed with IP‑driven four‑quadrant anchors, using data to target unclaimed weekends for higher conversion. The lesson is less about chasing horror as a cure‑all and more about sequencing: consistent openings emerge when a slate assembles multiple pre‑sold propositions that mobilize different audiences month after month. Post‑pandemic variability has made long streaks harder, so Warner Bros.’ 2025 run will be studied for lessons on campaign design, fan activation, and release pacing.
FAQs
- What record did WB set? Warner Bros. became the first studio this decade to roll out seven consecutive $40M+ domestic opening weekends, capped by The Conjuring: Last Rites.
- How big was Last Rites’ debut? About $83M domestic and $187M worldwide, positioning it as the third‑largest domestic horror opening and a standout global bow for 2025.
- Which earlier 2025 WB films helped sustain the run? Trades and trackers credit a mix including A Minecraft Movie, F1: The Movie, Superman, Final Destination: Bloodlines, Sinners, and Weapons as part of the streak’s build‑up.
- Why is September good for horror? Early fall has often incubated strong genre openings with less direct four‑quadrant competition, letting brands like The Conjuring over‑index on opening share.
Conclusion
Warner Bros.’ seven‑title streak is notable not only for its length but for how it blends strategy and brand strength, culminating in The Conjuring: Last Rites resetting franchise records while buoying a market that still benefits from reliable event anchors. In a year where audience enthusiasm concentrates around known quantities, WB’s run demonstrates that careful date selection and genre discipline can convert intent into consistent $40M‑plus openings, week after week.
Key takeaways
- WB’s streak: seven consecutive domestic openings above $40M, a rarity in the post‑pandemic market.
- Last Rites impact: $83M U.S. debut, $187M global, third‑largest domestic horror opening on record.
- Strategy edge: genre timing plus IP breadth sustained audience momentum across months.
- Industry signal: eventized scheduling and brand compounding can still manufacture consistent openings in a volatile market.
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