After the release of 2012’s Sinister, it looked like the next big horror franchise had been found. Then Sinister 2 came out, and those thoughts seemingly evaporated. Many fans thought Sinister 3 was pretty much a given, but the poor performance of the second film made that movie nothing more than an afterthought.
The Box Office for Sinister 2 wasn’t terrible, as it made $52 Million Worldwide against a budget of $10 million – $27 million of which came domestically. Comparing it to the first film, however, Sinister made $77 million worldwide and $48 million of it came domestically against a $3 million dollar budget.
The first film also has a 63% on Rotten Tomatoes – while the sequel has a 13%, with the critics consensus saying:
Sinister 2 has a few ingredients that will be familiar to fans of the original; unfortunately, in this slapdash second installment, none of them are scary anymore.
Screenwriter Scott Derickson had this to say before Sinister 2’s release:
“Sure, yeah, I’d like there to be ten of them, but it really depends on how this turns out and how it does. The reason the script took so long was because both [co-screenwriter C.Robert] Cargill and I have seen so many horror franchises – you know, we’re really familiar with how they tend to work and what the bad tendencies are. And so we were both really committed to writing the kind of horror sequel we would like to see, and that proved to be a lot more difficult than I think either of us were expecting.”
Some also felt that Sinister 2 was more of a cash grab, and that it also eliminated any of the mystery of the first film. Back in May of 2016, Producer Jason Blum said it did essentially boil down to money:
“There is no ‘Sinister 3.’ We didn’t do well enough with ‘Sinister 2.’ Not enough people went to see ‘Sinister 2’ to make ‘Sinister 3,’ which is really sad. One of things that I get asked a lot is: ‘What are your professional regrets?’ Obviously I have a lot of regrets professionally. Every movie we make, some of them are great, some of them are less great, of course. Sometimes the movies work because of the movies, sometimes it’s the marketing; it’s a complicated thing.”
He even offered up an apology:
“With ‘Sinister 2,’ I actually was very proud of the movie. I’m not pointing the finger at anyone except us, but I feel like we didn’t have the right date, it wasn’t positioned the right way, and it’s a shame because I really feel like Bagul is such a great, iconic, scary character. I really wanted to continue with him, but sadly — at least in movies — we’re not going to. Two days ago I had breakfast with [‘Sinister’ director] Scott Derrickson, who I hadn’t seen in a long time because he was off making ‘Doctor Strange’ in London and he’s finally back in LA. We had a terrific morning together and talked about a lot of things, including ‘Sinister,’ but sadly no ‘Sinister 3.’ I’m sorry.”
So it looks like at the end of the day, it came down to money and critical reception of the second film. Does that mean we’ll never see Mr. Boogie again? Don’t count on it, as it looks like Blum is trying to get an Insidious and Sinister crossover movie made! Blum recently said:
“We almost did Insidious and Sinister and I still feel like we might do that so, I think so. I think we’re going to cross our worlds at some point. I don’t know how yet but we’re gonna try.”
So while we might not ever get a Sinister 3, the main character of the first two movies could still live on in a future crossover movie. If not, at least we still have the first movie, which in my opinion, was one of the better horror movies to have been released in recent memory, while the second happens to be one of the worst. It’s strange how that works.
What do you think of a potential Insidious Sinsiter crossover movie? Would you like to see a third Sinister movie? Did you like the first or second? Be sure to tell us all of your personal thoughts in the comment section!