The Conjuring 2 Looks To Beat Warcraft At the Box Office

Last night's box office estimates are in, and it looks like The Conjuring 2 from Aquaman director James Wan will take the box office crown from Warcraft.

Warcraft, which earned a huge opening weekend in China, won't match those numbers in the U.S. as it earned $10.7M on Friday for an expected $25 to $30 million for the weekend.

Industry tracker Exhibitor Relations pointed out on Twitter that will bring the film's earnings into line with Battleship, even while its Chinese take of $145 million over 4 days soared past the lifetime $125 million theatrical haul of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Battleship, considered a flop domestically, performed similarly to how we might see Warcraft doing: it earned about 75% of its take overseas, managing hundreds of millions in the international market.

Warcraft also cost about $50 million less to make, increasing the odds that the international market will make it a Men in Black 3-style success, as opposed to a failure to launch like Battleship.

The Conjuring 2, which cost about a quarter of what Warcraft did to make ($40 million versus $150 million reported budgets), should earn around $40 million this weekend, setting it up to be a big success for Warner Bros.

The third-highest-grossing film of the weekend should be Now You See Me 2, which adds Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe, but should still earn about $23 million, rather than the $29 million the first film made in its opening frame. Again, though, a relatively low budget should make that film a win for the studio anyway -- especially if it performs like the previous one did at the international box office, where it earned about 2/3 of its money.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows ($4 million) and Me Before You ($3.1 million) rounded out yesterday's top five, although most analysts still expect X-Men: Apocalypse to do more than Me Before You over the course of the weekend.