Deadline reports that Warner Bros. made it official today that their New Line genre fare will stake out the post-Labor Day weekend through 2022; a 3-day period they initially made lucrative in September 2017 when they opened It to a record $123.4M for the month, and did so again this year when they bowed Conjuring spinoff The Nun to the month’s second best domestic B.O. debut of $53.8M.
Already, New Line has It: Chapter Two from director Andy Muschietti opening on Sept. 6 next year, but now they will open an untitled Conjuring universe movie on Sept. 11, 2020 followed by untitled horror movies on Sept. 10, 2021 and Sept. 9, 2022. It’s a practice not unlike Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe which has owned the first weekend of May since Iron Man in 2008 (not counting this year when they took Avengers: Infinity War a weekend earlier on April 27), posting some of the top-grossing weekends for the first month of the summer box office.
Yesterday, it was announced that The Curse of La Llorona director Michael Chaves was taking over the directing reins for James Wan on The Conjuring 3 though the latter will remain aboard as a producer. It’s not certain yet whether Conjuring 3 will go on Sept. 11, 2020 or another spinoff in the series.
These post-Labor day dates haven’t just served Warner Bros and New Line well in U.S./Canada, but abroad as well. It fired up a global opening of $189.7M while The Nun posted $133.1M.
