THB #610: What Is Horror Sequel's Box Office Win
THB #610: What Is Horror Sequel's Box Office Win
I found myself irritated by the fawning coverage of the Smile 2 opening that, simply, about matched the release of the original film. The most popular rationalization was that Smile 2 was cheap, so it’s a winner any way you cut it.
Yeah. That’s true. But it really avoids the reality of what this opening means.
My first red flashing light was that Smile opened well… but held like a superstar. 4.6x opening. $106 million domestic after a $23 million launch.
There are only really 2 franchises that have had those kinds of opening legs for the first of the series this millennium. (I ended up looking at 10 wide-release franchises.) The Ring - from DreamWorks SKG - opened to $15 million in 2002 and ended up at $129 million… 8.6x opening. And Paranormal Activity, which opened from exclusive slotting and eventually went wide, to $21 million… then grossed $108 million, 5.1x the wide opening.
None of the other films in the horror category did more than 3.8x opening (A Quiet Place)… not that everyone would put the film in that category.
So what did the sequels to these 2 films do? Paranormal Activity 2 went from a $21 million wide launch to a $41 million opening. The Ring went from a $15 million launch to a $35 million launch.
In the cases of The Conjuring, Annabelle, and The Nun, sequel openings were flat in 2 of them and dropped significantly for The Nun II, though that film had the longest Pt 1 to Pt 2 of the group, 5 years… also the only one straddling pre and post COVID.
The Saw franchise started with an $18 million opening in 2004. Saw II popped to a $32 million launch and stuck there. II through V all arrived to $30 - $34 million openings, even as the eventual domestic totals dropped each time.
The 2 It films are outliers, in that both opened to more than any of the other films on my list. The first film opened to $123 million and the sequel opened to $91 million. That’s a 26% drop in the openings, followed by a 36% drop in the domestic total.
The final franchise in the analysis was The Grudge, which opened to a surprising $39 million. The sequel opened to just $21 million. A clear loser.
So how do I see the Smile 2 opening?
Disappointing. Undeniably disappointing.
Yes, the film will be profitable. Yes, there will probably be a Smile 3. Yes, it “won the weekend.”
But when you have a movie open at $23 million and get to $106 million, as Smile did, the idea of the sequel opening being flat cannot be considered a win.
When A Quiet Place, which saw its sequel open flat, it was a disappointment. They have an advantage of comparison in that the sequel opened in 2020, one of the mid-COVID test films. So yes, for that moment, the opening was fine and the film was profitable. But even so, it was still disappointing.
Annabelle is one of the few franchises that was slightly off in the sequel opening, but ended up outgrossing the original… so great. But that franchise is part of The Conjuring Universe and the numbers are all around the same with a low of $84 million and a height of $137 million… so expectations were within reasonable expectations.
The horror stories of 2024 have been Longlegs and Terrifier 3. Longlegs is an original and broke various records with a $22 million opening and a $74 million domestic gross. Terrifier did $393k domestic… Terrifier 2 opened to $805k and did $10 million domestic… and now, Terrifier 3 has opened to $19 million and is over $36 million after 3 weekends.
So the question will be whether the next films for these franchises will open as well as these did. Both were remarkable and important marketing and publicity efforts, generating a strong return on a small spend. But neither is likely to get to 4x opening or a $100 million domestic gross, so neither really fits the reasonable expectations for Smile 2.
Paramount did have one serious kink in the marketing line for Smile 2. It has a concert element that is very similar to M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap… which flopped by its expected standards. The 2 trailers seemed almost connected all summer… and suddenly, Paramount had to reboot, de-emphasizing a key element of their film, a pop star in performance. I am not unsympathetic to this.
But it doesn’t make a disappointment a big win.
Box office coverage has become all about attacking or defending business performance. And that doesn’t lead to an honest read of the situations, which all have complex contexts… including that last weekend was horrible for the industry because both Joker 2 and Smile 2 have underperformed.
Until tomorrow…