There is a well-known trend for horror franchises to frequently churn out more sequels than strictly necessary in order to squeeze every last bit of profit from the popular genre. Insidious: The Red Door could well have been one of those, being the fifth movie in a series that could easily have been a single movie, or at the most a trilogy. Instead, the jump-scare franchise is taking on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny in a battle to be the box office winner this weekend, and is currently leading the fight over a lackluster showing for Harrison Ford’s adventurer.
After starting with a strong $17 million on its opening day, Insidious: The Red Door looks to be heading for a $30 million domestic opening, which could well beat out Dial of Destiny’s expected $28 million haul in its second weekend. This would give it the second best opening of the Insidious franchise behind the 2013 sequel to the original horror hit. In addition to that, the movie will claim the second highest domestic opening for a horror movie this year, behind another sequel, Scream VI.
This bodes well for another upcoming horror sequel, The Nun II, which released its first trailer last week and could well deliver another win for the horror genre in a year where scary movies have continued to make waves at the box office, while big budget blockbusters have ultimately failed.
Insidious Will Be Taking a Break Following The Red Door.
While there have been many horror franchises such as Saw and Paranormal Activity that have put out annual sequels, the Insidious franchise has not been so quick to deliver its new instalments. The original movie was released in 2010, with the sequel not arriving until 2013. Insidious Chapter 3 and Insidious: The Last Key followed at similar intervals. It has taken five more years for Insidious: The Red Door to arrive, and the film has been said to act as more of a direct sequel to Chapter 2 than the other sequels, which is perhaps why it has been so well received.
However, while audiences have bene happy to return to the franchise again, critics have been expected harsh over the movie, as they were for pretty much every other entry in the franchise. Currently, The Red Door has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 36%, the second lowest of the franchise, just ahead of The Last Key which hit a low of 33%. However, the audience score of 70% is easily the highest of the franchise, beating out even the first movie’s 62%.
According to Blumhouse’s Jason Blum, that could be a good thing for the franchise, as he has said that the series is now heading for a long rest, with no plans to continue for some time. He said:
“You better see this Insidious, it’s the last one!…To give a more serious answer, [The Red Door] is going to be the last we’re going to see of Insidious for a while. It may not be a forever rest, but it’s certainly going to be a very long rest. So, if someone comes up with some idea in 10 years, who knows? But there’s not a plan – as there has been with every prior Insidious movie – there’s no current plan in place for number six.”
However, it has been suggested that an Insidious spin-off movie could be coming in the not too distant future, because obviously you can’t quite keep a good horror money-spinner under lock and key completely.
