The power of brand recognition compels The Exorcist: Believer to the top of the weekend box office

The Devil takes the top spot of the U.S. box office, but PAW Patrol takes second

By Sam Barsanti  |  October 8, 2023 | 9:21pm
Aux News The Exorcist
The power of brand recognition compels The Exorcist: Believer to the top of the weekend box office
The Exorcist: Believer Photo: Eli Joshua Adé / Universal Pictures

Universal reportedly paid $400 million to get the rights to The Exorcist, and David Gordon Green’s sequel/reboot The Exorcist: Believer has only put a small dent in that number in its first weekend in theaters (also the movie cost money to make, so that number the studio needs to make back is higher). It opened to just over $27 million, which ain’t nothin’ and was enough to easily take the number one spot on the domestic charts, but it’s not exactly a Barbie opening. Either way, it fared better than last week’s winner, PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie, and last week’s close runner-up, Saw X. This week, the dog movie made $11 million and the killer tricycle puppet movie made $8 million.

Finishing up the top five are The Creator (with $6 million in week two and a total of $24 million) and Duck Dynasty prequel The Blind (with nearly $4 million, an increase from last weekend, and $10 million total). After that is A Haunting In Venice, The Nun II, Dumb Money, and Equalizer 3, all of which made a similar amount of money this weekend, and then a 30th anniversary re-release of Hocus Pocus, which made $1.5 million.

The other noteworthy thing on this chart is the debut of Dicks: The Musical, which only made $220,000, but it did that on only seven screens—which means a wild per-screen average of $31,000 (much better than anything else on the charts right now). That doesn’t usually translate to similar numbers when these things go wide, but stranger things have happened in the domestic box office.

Here’s the full top 10, courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

  • The Exorcist: Believer
  • PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie
  • Saw X
  • The Creator
  • The Blind
  • A Haunting In Venice
  • The Nun II
  • Dumb Money
  • The Equalizer 3
  • Hocus Pocus

 
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