2026's Latest Horror Sequel Is Officially Facing Tough Competition at the Box Office

9 hours ago 4

Samara Weaving And Kathryn Newton Talk Ready Or Not 2

Published Mar 21, 2026, 10:32 AM EDT

Rohan Naahar is a Weekend News Writer for Collider. From Francois Ozon to David Fincher, he'll watch anything once.

He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema.

This is one of Hollywood's most disheartening truths: sequels to cult hits rarely work. Studios often overestimate the impact of the original; their assumptions are backed by strong post-release numbers on home video and the like. However, the recent Sisu: Road to Revenge and M3GAN 2.0 have shown that certain properties are victims of flash-in-the-pan success. This trend goes back several years, with movies such as Tron: Ares, Bad Santa 2, and Highlander II: The Quickening all having succumbed to it. This week's new horror sequel must do everything it can to avoid falling into the same trap. However, it earned less-favorable reviews compared to its predecessor, and hasn't exactly had the best start to its box-office run.

The movie has no chance of securing the number one spot at the domestic box office in its opening weekend and is projected to gross one-seventh of Project Hail Mary, which is exceeding expectations on the back of universal acclaim and targeting more than $70 million this weekend. Meanwhile, in a major setback for the horror sequel, it's poised to fall short of a Bollywood film as well. The foreign title is Dhurandhar: The Revenge, a sequel to last year's gangster epic Dhurandhar, which defied propaganda allegations to emerge as one of the highest-grossing Indian movies ever made. The follow-up is expected to do even bigger business and is eying around $16 million in its U.S. debut — an all-time domestic record for an Indian film.

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Three Horror Movies Are Competing Against Each Other This Weekend

The horror sequel, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come, is currently looking at a domestic opening weekend haul of around $10 million. The original movie, Ready or Not, grossed a little more than $55 million in its global run back in 2019. The new movie brings back Radio Silence duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett in the directors' chairs alongside star Samara Weaving. It was produced on a reported budget of $14 million, which is more than double the $6 million that the original reportedly cost. The new movie currently holds a "Certified Fresh" 75% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics' consensus reads, "Tempting fate by picking up where it left off after an extended absence, Ready or Not 2 cheats the sequel curse thanks in large part to Samara Weaving's ferocious commitment to the bloody bit." The movie is also facing competition from Scream 7, a follow-up to Radio Silence's 2022 Scream reboot and Scream VI, and the indie horror Undertone. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.