This year has already proven, maybe more than any other in recent memory, that Hollywood has Sequelitis. And the results show that moviegoers simply have had no interest in them:
“Ride Along 2” kicked things-off in January with $90M, not the $134M of the first film. “Zoolander 2” flat-out bombed in February, and “The Divergent Series: Allegiant” did in March. “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2” wasn’t poised to take-in nearly as much as the 2002 original ($241M) – settling for $60M. Less than two years after the first “Neighbors”, “Sorority Rising” captured 1/3 of the crowds.
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows” won’t even make half of the 2014 reboot. “Now You See Me 2” isn’t going to break $100M like the 2013 surprise hit original. And “Alice Through the Looking Glass” has only made 1/5 of 2010’s “Alice in Wonderland”, which relied heavily on being the first 3D release following “Avatar” for box office success.
2013’s “Save the President” thriller “Olympus Has Fallen” grossed just under $100 million. 2016 sequel “London Has Fallen”: $63M. And “The Conjuring 2” (sequel to another ’13 first installment) won’t come close to the original’s $137M cume. “Kung Fu Panda 3”, DreamWorks Animation’s first-ever January release in the studio’s 18-year history, made the least amount of money of the franchise (though only in the US – it dominated in China). “God’s Not Dead 2” was engulfed by other religious-themed films at the time of its release. Even the well-reviewed “Barbershop: The Next Cut” was the least successful of the trilogy.
Spinoff sequels follow the same pattern: The all-star “Snow White” second chapter, “The Huntsman: Winter’s War”, made just 30% of the original in the U.S. “10 Cloverfield Lane” nearly matched the results of J.J. Abrams’ ’08 sci-fi “found footage” film, but an eight-year gap didn’t help. And in the case of prequel sequel, “X-Men: Apocalypse”, it’s barely out-grossed 2011’s “First Class”, but is near the bottom of the “X-Men” franchise.
The only success stories so far this year are two films that audiences actually wanted to see, and were going to see, even if they weren’t sequels: “Captain America: Civil War”, which leads the 2016 box office standings with $400M, and fellow Disney blockbuster, “Finding Dory”, which just broke the animated movie opening weekend record and will challenge “CA:CW”‘s hold on the top spot.
Still to come this Summer: another “Purge”, another “Star Trek”, another “Ice Age” and another “Bourne”, with “Inferno” (the third Tom Hanks/Ron Howard “Da Vinci Code” film) as the biggest non-“Star Wars” sequel set for the Fall/Holiday Season.
Source: BoxOfficeMojo.com