Twisters broke box office records during its opening weekend, surpassing expectations and proving that Americans still love disaster movies, new Hollywood stars, Glen Powell, and sequels despite cries of franchise fatigue.
The sequel to the 1996 thriller starring Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt grossed $80.5 million domestically over the weekend. The film broke the record for the biggest domestic opening for a natural disaster movie (yes, that’s a category), beating out 2004’s “The Day After Tomorrow,” which grossed $68.7 million in its third weekend, and the apocalyptic film “2012,” which grossed $65.2 million.
Judging by the numbers so far, 2024 may be remembered as the year of sequels. Dune Part 2 kicked off the year with $711 million at the global box office. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (the 10th film in the series overall and the fourth in the more modern saga) grossed $396 million worldwide. Bad Boys: Ride or Die, the fourth film in the series starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, grossed $388 million worldwide as well.
Pixar’s sequel, Inside Out 2, has since made $1.4 billion at the box office, making it the highest-grossing Pixar film of all time. It is the second highest-grossing animated film of all time after Disney’s sequel, Frozen 2. Pixar has said it would explore the possibility of making further sequels if Inside Out 2 is a success.
Both A Quiet Place and Despicable Me shook off franchise fatigue by grossing big money (Despicable Me topped the box office, while A Quiet Place grossed less than Inside Out 2 in its opening weekend). The success of Twisters reinforced the success of sequels, proving that the hunger for sequels is still there, experts say.
These successes come amid a few original film flops: Kevin Costner’s passion project “Horizon” grossed $32 million (a sequel that had already been shot has been halted in theaters, at least for now), while Apple’s “Fly Me to the Moon,” starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, grossed $9.4 million domestically. Those numbers don’t compare favorably to 2023, when three original movies — “Barbie,” “Oppenheimer” and “Sound of Freedom” — dominated the summer box office.
But not all sequels have thrived so far this year. George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road (the fifth film in the series) had a lackluster opening weekend gross of $26.3 million, while Ghostbusters 3: The Frozen Empire (a soft reboot sequel to the ’80s hit) made $45 million in its opening weekend, roughly the same as its 2021 predecessor.
“I think when there are too many movies released from a franchise, people get bored,” says Jamie Broadnax, founder and CEO of podcast and film culture website Black Girl Nerds, “and Marvel Studios is a great example of that.”
Indeed, Marvel has struggled with sequels recently, with movies within the Marvel Cinematic Universe beginning to see declining revenue by the end of 2023 with films like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantamania and The Marvels.
This weekend will test the power of sequels with the release of Marvel’s Deadpool & Wolverine (the 34th film in the MCU and the third in the Deadpool trilogy). The movie is expected to gross around $160 million in its opening weekend, which would make it the biggest grossing movie of the year and rival the sequel debuts of Iron Man, Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy (all of which are touted as MCU success stories). The movie will have the biggest Imax release ever, opening on 1,642 Imax screens in 83 markets, said Imax Distribution’s Craig Demmel.
Other sequels due for release in 2024 include Alien: Romulus, Beetlejuice, Joker: Two Nightmares, Gladiator 2, and Moana. There’s also a sequel to the horror movie Smile. It’s unclear whether these films will be as successful as the early 2024 releases, but it seems certain that sequels aren’t dead.
“Big franchises should have staying power,” said David Gross, publisher of Franchise Entertainment Research, a newsletter that analyzes box-office performance, but he noted that “audiences respond to each movie at a time.”