A profitable horror movie being granted a sequel is nothing out of the ordinary, so when Fede Álvarez’s Don’t Breathe managed to haul in close to $160 million on a budget of under $10 million, a second outing was virtually guaranteed.
It took a while to arrive after being hit by several pandemic-related delays, though, but Stephen Lang’s return as Norman Nordstrom still conspired to take in $54 million from theaters on production costs of $18 million to ensure the nascent franchise remained firmly in the black.
Like most high concept follow-ups, Don’t Breathe 2 was a substantial step down from its predecessor, but that wasn’t where the main bone of contention lay. Instead, having a character who’d kept a woman chained up in his basement with the intention of forcibly impregnating her against her will transform into a sympathetic hybrid of father figure and antihero left a lot of people uneasy.
Sure, The Blind Man was still bludgeoning his enemies to death in brutal and sadistic fashion, but trying to paint an empathetic picture was a wrong move that stirred up backlash the filmmakers were even forced to confront head-on. Not that the lingering queasiness has done anything to dampen Don’t Breathe 2 performing on streaming, seeing as it’s been named by FlixPatrol as one of the most-watched features on Netflix’s global charts.
There’s probably going to be a threequel, but maybe we’ll get a different spin on its driving force to offset any potential backlash.