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.
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