Opening to a less-than-expected $32 million, Blade Runner 2049 underperformed despite glowing critical reception. But while 2049 may not have performed up to industry expectations, how did it fare in comparison to other long-awaited sequels.
IGN earlier this year took a look at 13 movie sequels that took years, and even decades, to be released following the original. In the chart below, find out how those sequels fared alongside the openings of the original films, with numbers via BoxOfficeMojo.
Some caveats: films from that feature were left off this list when opening weekend box office info was unavailable. Additionally, like with the original list, only the second films in a franchise have been included, so a film like Star Wars: The Force Awakens has not been included in the list below.
| Original Film and Sequel (Year/# of Theaters) | Year Gap Between Films | Original Opening Adjusted/Unadjusted | Sequel Opening Adjusted/Unadjusted |
| Blade Runner(1982/1,295)/Blade Runner 2049 (2017/4,058) | 35 years | $6.2 million/$15.6 million | $32.8 million |
| Tron (1982/1,091)/Tron Legacy (2010/3,451) | 29 years | $4.8 million/$12.1 million | $44 million/$49.6 million |
| Trainspotting (1996/357)/T2: Trainspotting (2017/331) | 21 years | $263,673/$412,598 | $170,575 |
| Dumb & Dumber (1994/2,447) / Dumb & Dumber To (2014/3,154) | 20 years | $16.4 million/27.1 million | $36.1 million/37.4 million |
| Bad Santa (2003/2,005)/Bad Santa 2 (2016/2,920) | 13 years | $12.3 million/$16.4 million | $6.2 million/$6.3 million |
| Finding Nemo (2003/3,374)/Finding Dory (2016/4,305) | 13 years | $70.3 million/$93.7 million | $135.1 million/138.2 million |
| Clerks (1994/2)/Clerks II (2006/2,150) | 12 years | $31,665/$52,458 | $10.1 million/$12.3 million |
| The X-Files (1998/2,629)/The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008/3,185) | 10 years | $30.1 million/$45.4 million | $10 million/$11.4 million |
| Sin City (2005/3,230)/Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014/2,894) | 9 years | $29.1 million/$36.6 million | $6.3 million/$6.5 million |
While Blade Runner 2049's box office debut may have been disappointing according to industry expectations, of the film's included on this list, it had one of the strongest sequel openings in comparison to the original films. 2049 made more than five times what Blade Runner did in its debut unadjusted for inflation, the biggest jump for any of these long-awaited sequels save for Tron Legacy and Clerks II. Adjusted for inflation, though, 2049 only made about twice that of its predecessor, which falls more in line with Dumb and Dumber To and Finding Dory.
(Clerks II is in a particularly different situation and more difficult to compare to the rest of the list. The original Clerks only debuted in two theaters, with its sequel opening in over 2,000. That huge jump, and the first's minuscule opening, set Clerks II up to make much more money over its predecessor.)
2049 is the only of these long-awaited sequels to have opened in over 4,000 theaters aside from Finding Dory. That animated hit capitalized on the impressive success of Finding Nemo, nearly doubling that first film's box office while only opening in about 1,000 more theaters. Conversely, while 2049 opened in a similar number of theaters to Finding Dory, it was building off the smaller release of Blade Runner, which opened in nearly 2,800 less theaters than the sequel.
So while by theater count 2049 may not have had the best showing, it is toward the middle or upper tier of the performance of long-awaited sequels in their debuts. Several sequels on the list, including Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, Bad Santa 2, and The X-Files: I Want to Believe all made less than the original films. The Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling-starring sequel has also already essentially made as much as the original Blade Runner did in its entire box office run, unadjusted for inflation.
Of course, there's no exact formula that can be gleamed from this list of how to or not to ensure a sequel is successful. There are various factors at play with each one of these films, and a mass appeal animated sequel to a hit film is of course going to be set up to make a larger box office than a three-hour sequel to a beloved sci-fi film originally considered a commercial failure that has been built on a secretive marketing campaign. And whereas one genre franchise, like Sin City, can falter in its second outing, Tron can see a much stronger debut. Word of mouth buzz, critical success, marketing, and many other factors can be at play with each one of these films, and the gaps in between releases don't necessarily indicate success or a lack of it for these sequels.
If you're unfamiliar with Blade Runner 2049, we here at IGN broke down the history and world of Blade Runner. Needless to say, the sci-fi film has quite the legacy. And for those who have seen in the film, check out our full spoilercast below.
Jonathon Dornbush is an Associate Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter @jmdornbush.
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