Movie Sequels That Weren’t Successful As The Originals

By Author: Aida Martin
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After the first film’s success, production houses and filmmakers create the sequel to profit from the project. Writers and directors also shared that sometimes they are also forced to write the sequel’s screenplay even if they do not have any new ideas regarding the project. Indeed, there are also some movies whose storyline creators genuinely wished to continue.

To generate more revenue out of the sequel, the projects generally have higher budgets than the original one. The studios spend more money on the promotional events, marketing, and high budget production, and in between all these, the true essence of the film, the story, suffers miserably.

This article will list down some of those sequels who performed worse than the original film.

Horrible Bosses 2 (2014)- $107 Million

The first movie of the franchise was released in 2011, titled Horrible Bosses. It was a dark comedy written by three writers John Francis Daley, Michael Markowitz, and Jonathan Goldstein. The movie was a great commercial hit and collected over $209 million against a $35 million budget. The team released a sequel of the ...
... film on 26 November 2014 titled, Horrible Bosses 2 with the same stars, including Charlie Day, Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman, Jamie Foxx, and Kevin Spacey.

The production studios spent $57 million on the sequel, but the project grossed $107 million worldwide, which was almost $100 million less than the previous one. The sequel’s plot continues the storyline of the first movie and follows Kurt, Dale, and Nick as they kidnapped the millionaire’s son after he tortured them on a business deal.

Horrible Bosses 2 also got a mixed response from both critics and audiences. It holds a 34% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 155 reviews, with an average of 4.6/10. One of the reviewers on TheWrap, Dan Callahan, wrote that the movie is ugly, puerile, and painfully unfunny.

It Chapter Two (2019)- $473 Million

It was the first film in the franchise based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name published in 1986. And the second film of the franchise is the adaptation of the 1990s miniseries directed by Tommy Lee Wallace. Actor Bill Skarsgard featured in both the movies as Bob Gray.

It made a box office collection of $701.8 million against a budget of $35 million. The makers made a profit of more than $600 million. And the sequel film It Chapter Two grossed 473.1 million against a double budget of the previous production with a $390 million profit.

It Chapter Two got an approval rating of 63% based on 359 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 6.11/10. The movie received mixed reviews from audiences. A critic for Variety, Peter DeBruge, wrote that the scary clown is back, but a suitably frightening sequel.

The screenplay is set in a fictional town Derry, Maine, when a man’s boyfriend is murdered by a clown, Pennywise. While investigating, officer Mike Hanlon discovers that ‘It’ has returned and calls all his childhood friends, as they have promised to kill ‘It’ if it ever comes back.

The film’s collection is undoubtedly impressive, but the first part of the franchise did much better business than the later one.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)- $618 Million

Steven Spielberg created the first movie of the Jurassic franchise in 1993. The movie was an adaptation of Michael Crichton’s 1990 novel of the same title. David Koepp and Crichton write the screenplay of the film. And after four years, the team released the sequel of the movie in 1997.

The 1993 movie was the most significant commercial hit until the release of Leonardo DiCaprio’s Titanic in 1997. Jurassic Park made a $1.03 billion box office collection against the budget of $63 million. The 1997 sequel disappointed the producers with a collection of $618.6 million after spending $73 million on the production.

Jeff Goldblum starred in both the movies and the plot is in the continuation of the first film. The 1997 film starts four years after the disaster happened in Jurassic Park, and it follows a team to Isla Sorna led by Malcolm to study the animals.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park received a 53% approval rating based on 78 reviews, with an average rating of 5.64/10. Chicago Tribune’s Gene Siskel wrote that he was disappointed after watching the movie because it lacks Spielberg’s eliciting characters.

Halloween II (1981)- $25.5 Million

Halloween II is a sequel to the 1978 slasher film Halloween directed by John Carpenter. It was one of the most successful independent films and released in October 1978. The 1981 film Halloween II was the debut project for director Rick Rosenthal, and John Carpenter wrote and produced the film.

Carpenter’s Halloween grossed $70 million against a budget of $325,000, whereas Rosenthal $25.5 million with the production budget of $2.5 million. With actors Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis, the franchise’s sequel was distributed by Universal Picture on 30 October 1981.

The plot of Halloween II picks directly from the end of the first film. And it follows Michael Myers, who was the survivor of Laurie Strode in a local hospital. The movie holds an approval rating of 32% based on 41 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 4.86/10. And on Metacritic, it scored 40 out of 100 based on 11 critics. Roger Ebert, a critic of the Chicago Sun-Times, described the film as “the project fell from greatest, and it does not seem the creator even attempted to do justice to the original movie.”

Ghostbusters II (1989)- $215 Million

Ghostbuster II is the other squeal in the list that nobody wanted. The first film of the franchise, Ghostbuster, was the highest-grossing film of that time with a gross $295 million box office collection. The sequel of the film titled Ghostbusters II got a mediocre response from the audience, and the movie collected $215 million.

Movies are one of the great entertainment sources, and the critical element of films are the scripts. A good script might sometimes result in a bad movie, but a bad script can never turn into a good movie. Sadly, in the film business, makers and producers avoid the screenplay and think that they can compensate for it with high tech cameras and big-budget promotions.

Eva Winget is a Microsoft Office expert and has been working in the technical industry since 2006. As a technical expert, Eva has written technical blogs, manuals, white papers, and reviews for many websites such as office.com/setup.

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