British audiences give sequel to low-budget horror hit a chance, while Despicable Me wins the family film face-off
The winner
When Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows came out for Halloween 2000, exactly a year after the cult horror hit that spawned it, the film opened in the UK with a disappointing £1.09m. This compared with £5.88m for the first weekend of wide play for the original The Blair Witch Project.
This cautionary tale was presumably uppermost in the minds of executives at Paramount Pictures as it produced and distributed Paranormal Activity 2, the sequel to the low-budget chiller it originally acquired at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival with remake rights in mind. Encoded in the DNA of its marketing campaign was the message that Paranormal Activity 2 was no Blair Witch 2.
On the evidence of PA2's opening of £3.76m, including £453,000 in previews, that message has been received by UK cinemagoers.
The winner
When Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows came out for Halloween 2000, exactly a year after the cult horror hit that spawned it, the film opened in the UK with a disappointing £1.09m. This compared with £5.88m for the first weekend of wide play for the original The Blair Witch Project.
This cautionary tale was presumably uppermost in the minds of executives at Paramount Pictures as it produced and distributed Paranormal Activity 2, the sequel to the low-budget chiller it originally acquired at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival with remake rights in mind. Encoded in the DNA of its marketing campaign was the message that Paranormal Activity 2 was no Blair Witch 2.
On the evidence of PA2's opening of £3.76m, including £453,000 in previews, that message has been received by UK cinemagoers.
- 10/26/2010
- by Charles Gant
- The Guardian - Film News
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