Happy Death Day 2U earns big at the box office during week one

Clement Gibson

Editor-in-Chief

Universal’s latest release, “Happy Death Day 2U,” appeared in theaters on Feb. 13, 2019.

The sequel to 2017’s “Happy Death Day,” brought a mixture of comedy and thrill to the big screen.

The movie stars Jessica Rothe as

Tree Gelbman, a college girl who continues to wake up in a parallel universe.

Israel Broussard stars as Carter, Tree’s boyfriend but is in a relationship with her best friend and sorority sister, Danielle, played by Rachel Matthews, in this new universe.

Tree finds out that Carter’s roommate, Ryan is the reason for her continuous and unwanted time travel and wants to put an immediate stop to it.

However, Tree and her new group of friends are targets of a masked killer and every time she dies, she wakes up right back where she started.

This cycle happens several times before she realizes that she must die to save everyone; forcing her to choose between her mother and her boyfriend.

Categorized as a mystery/slasher, the film seems more like comedy/action. Nonetheless, the $9 million budget turned into $27 million in the first week according to “Forbes.com.”

Even with a big profit margin, movie critics like “IMDb,” “Rotten Tomatoes” and “Metacritic” rated the movie below average.

IMDb gave the film a 6.7 out of 10, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic respectively rated the movie 67 and 56 percent.

Nonetheless, others were pleased with what they saw. David Edelstein of “Vulture.com” called it a just-as-fun sequel.

“Stalk-and-kill movies bear some resemblance to classic farces, but no horror movies have taken the similarities as far as Happy Death Day and its busier, just-as-fun sequel, Happy Death 2U,” said Edelstein.

Sandy Schaefer of “Screenrant.com” complimented the genre twist in the sequel saying it made the film more entertaining.

She stated, “Happy Death Day 2U adds a genre twist to the series’ formula, delivering a sequel that’s funnier, sillier, and more entertaining than the first movie.”

A free screening was held at Cinemark (formerly Tinseltown) in Pearl, Miss., on Tuesday, February 12, and sold out nearly an hour before showtime.

Darius Johnson, a senior biology pre-medicine major from Hattiesburg, Miss., says he was disappointed because the movie was not scary.

“The movie was really repetitive. She died over and over again. When I saw the trailer, I thought it would be scary so that’s why I decided to go. It was not scary at all. I did not jump once,” said Johnson.

Tatiana Evans, a freshman social work major from Santa Cruz, Calif., thinks the first movie was better than the sequel.

Evans stated, “I liked the first movie better than this one because it was more original, but then again, it’s basically the same thing as the 2017 movie. They only made this one because the last one made so much money.”

News of a third movie has already begun although the 2019 film has only been in theaters for a week.

According to “Screenrant.com,” the third movie could conceivably hit theaters in late 2020 or early 2021.