Box Office: ‘Black Phone 2’ Grabs $26.5 Million in Otherwise Muted October Weekend

Universal and Blumhouse’s horror sequel “The Black Phone 2” kicked off spooky season with $26.5 million from 3,411 North American theaters. Those ticket sales were enough to lead an otherwise sleepy weekend at the domestic box office.

“The Black Phone 2” opened in line with expectations and slightly ahead of its predecessor. The original “Black Phone” launched with $23 million in 2021 as cinemas were only starting to recover from COVID. Just to give a sense of the vastly different box office landscape between the first and second film: With almost identical ticket sales, “The Black Phone” opened in fourth place behind “Elvis,” “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Jurassic World: Dominion” in the height of summer movie season.

In contrast, the “Black Phone” follow-up had a sluggish October mostly to itself. This weekend’s other newcomer, Lionsgate’s R-rated comedy “Good Fortune,” opened at No. 3 with just $6.2 million from, 2990 venues. Second place went to Disney’s sci-fi sequel “Tron: Are” with $11 million from 4,000 screens, representing a steep 66% decline from its first outing.

“The Black Phone 2” collected $15.5 million at the international box office for a global tally of $42 million. Though a respectable result, Universal and Blumhouse spent more to bring back Ethan Hawke as the serial killer known as the Grabber. The sequel cost $30 million compared to the first film’s $18 million price tag. “The Black Phone 2” has decent reviews but wasn’t received as fondly as the original by moviegoers; this film earned a “B” grade on CinemaScore exit polls while the first landed a “B+” grade.

Since ticket sales are split roughly 50-50 between studios and movie theaters, “The Black Phone 2” needs to stick around to count as a major comeback for Blumhouse. The low-budget horror empire, responsible for “Paranormal Activity,” “The Purge,” “Get Out” “Halloween” and other franchises with scary-good profit margins, has long been one of Hollywood’s most consistent hitmakers. However the company’s fortunes have shifted over the past year with one dud after another including “Wolf Man” and “M3GAN 2.0.” Blumhouse has another sequel, “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,” on the calendar in December.

More to come…