Halloween was still a few months away but horror possession movie, "The Conjuring," soared its way up at the top of the box office with an impressive opening weekend record. The film's worldwide ticket sales were estimated to be $41 million.

"The Conjuring's" unexpected box office performance did far better than "The Lone Ranger" and "After Earth" despite having a modest budget of $20 million with no big Hollywood A-listers.

The low-budget thriller starred Patrick Wilson ("Insidious") and Vera Farmiga ("Up In The Air") as the paranormal investigators who attempt to save a family from disturbing events in their home.

"The Conjuring," directed by Malaysian-Australian James Wan, had its Los Angeles premiere last July 15. The real Lorraine Warren, played by Farmiga, was also in attendance.

Warren, 86, praised the film by saying, "I think they did a pretty good job. I can remember the places where it was very bad such as the dirt cellar [in the Perron home]. I can remember my husband going down the stairs and there was a professor from a university in New Haven, Connecticut who wanted to see what was happening in the Perron home."

The success of Wan's latest horror feature was due to the lack of competition from other horror films in tow, the scary trailer, and the "based-in-fact" and strong word-of-mouth marketing campaign.

"The Conjuring" opened in Australia last July 18, grossing $1.5 million from 134 locations, while New Zealand brought $200,000.

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