“La Llorona” is the latest horror movie to outperform expectations, further cementing the genre as a reliable box office draw. Even so, “La Llorona” and other new releases “Breakthrough” and “Penguins” couldn’t salvage movie theaters from suffering the worst Easter weekend showing in almost 15 years. This weekend’s offerings amassed $112 million in ticket sales, the lowest haul since 2005. The decline in sales is likely because the rest of Hollywood avoided opening a big movie ahead of Disney and Marvel’s “Avengers: Endgame,” which is expected to crush records when it debuts on April 26.
“La Llorona,” a supernatural thriller set in the “Conjuring” universe, cost $9 million to produce. The film is based on the Mexican folklore about the Weeping Woman, a