Blumhouse is back in action.
Scott Derrickson’s sequel Black Phone 2 delivered horror maestro Jason Blum a major win in opening to a better-than-expected $26.5 million domestically from 3,411 theaters and $42 million globally. The pic’s debut follows a string of misses for the banner, culminating with the pricey flop of M3GAN 2.0 earlier this year.
The Universal and Blumhouse release easily came in No. 1 after scoring solid reviews and strong audience exits, including a B CinemaScore (that’s a great grade for the horror genre). Also notable: Latinos, the most frequent moviegoers, made up the largest segment of the audience at roughly 39 percent.
The sequel, costing a relatively modest $30 million to produce, returns Ethan Hawke as the serial killer known as Grabber. Heading into the weekend, Universal had the movie’s debut at $18 million, but prerelease tracking turned out to be right in predicting that the R-rated sequel would come in ahead of the first film.
Black Phone, opening in 2021 when cinemas were first recovering from COVID, started off with $23.6 million in North America on its way to turning into a sleeper hit, amassing more than $161 million in worldwide ticket sales (that was before horror fatigue struck at the box office).
Lionsgate’s Aziz Ansari-directed comedy Good Fortune also launched nationwide this weekend, but wasn’t so lucky. The $30 million film took in an estimated $6.2 million from 2,990 locations domestically to come in on the low end of expectations despite its star-packed cast and a B+ CinemaScore. The cast is led by Seth Rogen, Ansari and Keke Palmer, with Sandra Oh and Keanu Reeves.
Good Fortune tells the story of a scruffy guardian angel assigned to save someone’s soul.
More to come.
