‘Happy Death Day 2U’ on HBO: Will the Sequel Find New Life on Streaming?

Every streaming service under the sun is going all-in on horror films this Halloween month, but HBO has got a particularly good one: Happy Death Day 2U, airing on HBO on Saturday, October 11 at 8 p.m. ET. This sequel to Happy Death Day—the wildly successful 2017 Blumhouse horror flick written and directed by Christopher Landon, who also helmed the sequel—recreated the premise of the first film, but with a new sci-fi twist.

In Happy Death Day 2U, Jessica Rothe is back as Tree Gelbman, a college student who recently survived a Groundhog’s Day-themed nightmare. In the first film, Tree is caught in a time loop reliving the day she is murdered over and over. In Happy Death Day 2U, Tree gets answers as to why exactly that time loop was created. It’s because fellow college student Ryan Phan (actor Phi Vu) was doing some quantum physics experiments, you know, like you do. Unfortunately, Ryan gets murdered by someone wearing the baby mask that the killer in the first film wore. I won’t spoil exactly how it happens, but long story short: Tree ends up back in that familiar time loop from the first film, with a few significant changes and realizes that she’s in another dimension.

It’s very Star Trek, and you’ll get a headache if you think about it for too long. Still, the film was more or less well-received and holds a 69 percent rating on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes. Most critics agreed that while it could never recreate the magic of the first film, it was still an enjoyable watch. That’s the way sequels to a beloved surprise hit usually tend to play out, so no surprise there. What was surprising, however, was that Happy Death Day 2U performed far worse at the box office than its predecessor, Happy Death Day. According to Box Office Mojo, the first film made a jaw-dropping $125 million at the worldwide box office, on a production budget of just $4.8 million. The second film made $64.5 million at the worldwide box office, on a production budget of $9 million—still a success, but about half as much as the first film made.

That is not the way sequel box offices to a beloved surprise hit tend to turn out, at least not by such a significant margin. The first John Wick, for example, made the smallest profit in the John Wick franchise. The same goes for another Blumhouse film, The Purge. And while Blumhouse’s first Paranormal Activity is still the best-performing film in the franchise, the second film still made almost as much as the first. ($104 million compared to $107 million.)

So what happened with Happy Death Day 2U? My guess is that the timing was off. The first Happy Death Day was not only released in October but on a Friday the 13th in October. You can’t catch people in a spookier mood than that. Happy Death Day 2U, on the other hand, came out in February, on President’s Day Weekend, when moviegoers were only lured out of the warmth of their houses for Alita: Battle Angel. Personally, when I tried to go see Happy Death Day 2U at the AMC Magic Johnson in Harlem in February, the wait for my medium-spicy wings at the attached Buffalo Wild Wings location was so long that I missed the showtime. Maybe other people had a similar problem? What I’m saying is that the Buffalo Wild Wings on 125th street needs to hire more staff to reduce their wait times.

But I digress. Now that Happy Death Day 2U is soon to be available to stream on HBO, we have a feeling the film will find its second life. No one wants to leave their homes in the dead of winter to go to the movies, but there are plenty of people sitting on their couches looking for spooky streaming content this month. As for fans who are holding their breath for Happy Death Day 3, as of now director Christopher Landon has said that while he has an idea in mind, plans for a third film are indefinitely on hold. “I don’t know what form it’s gonna take, but I will definitely tell that story somehow,” Landon told ComicBook.com. “If people thought the second movie was batshit, then they’re not ready for the third story. Because it goes so much more crazy, but in such a fun way. So I’ll get it out there somehow.”

Hey, maybe if the movie does well enough on streaming, we’ll get a Netflix movie!

Where to stream Happy Death Day 2U