Annabelle Comes Home

In early April 2018, Warner Bros. announced that a then-untitled film in the Conjuring Universe franchise would be released on July 3, 2019. Later that month, it was announced that the film would be another installment in the Annabelle series, with Gary Dauberman signed on to write and direct the film in his directorial debut, based on a story treatment written by Dauberman and James Wan.[4] Wan and Peter Safran co-produced the project.[5] During the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con, Wan and Safran revealed the film's events would take place after Annabelle and would focus on the doll after she had been placed in a glass case in the Warrens' museum.[6] Dauberman later confirmed this, stating that the film would take place shortly after the beginning of The Conjuring where the titular character is introduced, but also before many of the events of the first installment.[7]

In late September 2018, Mckenna Grace was cast in the film as Judy Warren, the Warrens' 10-year-old daughter, (replacing Sterling Jerins who played Judy Warren in The Conjuring and The Conjuring 2), and Madison Iseman as one of Judy's teenage babysitters.[8] By October, Katie Sarife had joined the cast. That same month, it was announced Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga would reprise their roles as Ed and Lorraine Warren.[4]

Principal photography commenced by mid-October in Los Angeles,[9][4] with Michael Burgess serving as cinematographer.[10] On December 7, Wilson announced that he had finished filming his scenes. A week later, filming officially wrapped.[11][12] In February 2019, Joseph Bishara—who composed the scores for The Conjuring, Annabelle, The Conjuring 2, and The Curse of La Llorona—was revealed to be scoring Annabelle Comes Home.[13] On March 30, 2019, Kirk M. Morri was announced as the film's editor.[14]

Annabelle Comes Home grossed $74.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $157.1 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $231.3 million.[3] Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be $64 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues.[16]

In the United States and Canada, the film was projected to gross $30–35 million from 3,587 theaters over its first five days.[20] It made $7.2 million on its first day, a Wednesday, including $3.5 million from Tuesday night previews, the third-best total of any Conjuring installment.[21] It then made $3.6 million on its second day of release for a two-day total of $10.8 million. It went on to debut to $20.3 million (a five-day total of $31.2 million), finishing second at the box office, behind holdover Toy Story 4, and marking the lowest start of any Conjuring film.[2] In its second weekend, the film dropped 52% and grossed $9.8 million, finishing in fifth.[22]

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 64% based on 211 reviews, with an average rating of 5.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Fun for fans even if it isn't as frightening as some of its predecessors, Annabelle Comes Home suggests there's still some life left in the Conjuring franchise."[23] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 53 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[24] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of B− on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it an average 2.5 out of 5 stars, and a 42% "definite recommend".[21]

Two crew members were nominated for their work on the film. Leah Butler was nominated in the Best Costume Design category at the 2019 Fright Meter Awards.[25] Gary Dauberman was nominated as Legion M Breakthrough Director at the 2019 Saturn Awards.[26]