This Fall has been good for films proving that you don’t need critical approval or a Fresh rating on the Tomatometer to make it big at the box office. Venom continues to exceed projections and rake it in and the latest entry in the Conjuring universe, The Nun earned $400m (making it the highest grossing movie in the franchise to date) despite some brutal takedowns by critics who deemed it slack and dull. The pic was released on September 6th, but it seems that it’s now being rushed towards a digital debut on November 20th followed by the Blu-ray landing on December 4th.
Personally, I was a bit letdown by the movie, especially given that everything I’d read about it made it sound like it was going to be a winner. I’d liked the Nun’s appearances in previous Conjuring films, thought the supporting cast was strong and I really enjoyed director Corin Hardy’s The Hallow. I also liked the fact that they didn’t give too much away in trailers and especially got a kick out of the gimmick of the cast and crew assuring us that they thought they’d been haunted by genuine g-g-ghosts while shooting it.
But the finished product simply wasn’t that great, relying a bit too much on cheesy jump scares that got a bit repetitive after a while. Having said that, the audience I was with seemed to be having the time of their lives being spooked, so maybe I’ve just seen a few too many creature features for it to have an effect on me.
Anyways, no word on what kind of extras we can expect on the Blu-ray, but I’d imagine we’ll at least get a director’s commentary and a making-of doc. Fingers crossed that goes more into the spooktacular production, because if there’s one thing I would like to see it’s a load of Hollywood types getting menaced by Eastern European ghosts as they try to shoot a not-very-good horror movie.
Still, given the gargantuan amounts of money this raked in, I’d bet we’ll be seeing an announcement for The Nun 2 real soon.