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Kim Hollis: The Last Exorcism Part II earned $7.7 million over the weekend. That's less than the original film earned on its first day. Why do you think audiences weren't up for more exorcising?

Jay Barney: I'll go back to something I argued a few weeks ago. The horror genre just has so many options for people to latch onto. Even for people who enjoy these types of films, there have been so many of them lately, they can miss one or two and still catch the next one relatively soon. If the title is strong, or the concept is creepy enough, young people will flock to these. Occasionally there are bombs, but enough of these do make money. This one will. CBS Films spent $5 million and they have already made their money back. It was a good investment for them, even if this one is at the bottom of the top 10 by next weekend.

Felix Quinonez: I think it has to do with the fact that the first one had some really bad word-of-mouth. People seemed to really hate the ending and it reflected in the box office performance of the sequel.

Bruce Hall: Sure it only made $7.7 million, and it only cost five. Like I said back in Topic #2, that excuse is for low budget horror movies. There's no doubt this is going to be a profitable sequel but based on the fact that the original posted a $20 million opening on a $2 million budget - you can't tell me the suits at CBS are going to look at each other across the table Monday morning and say "Yes, this was our goal for the sequel."

Matthew Huntley: To piggyback on Felix's response, I think the movie's lackluster performance can be attributed to the fact it's a sequel nobody was really asking for to a film nobody really remembers or liked very much. And why did CBS choose to release it in March of all months? Why not release it in late August or early October when these types of films tend to thrive? Maybe then enough time would have passed between the last horror movie and this one to where people would have actually been up for more exorcising.

Shalimar Sahota: It does feel like there's been a glut of these kind of films the last few years. Just where else can the exorcising sub-genre go? It's interesting that the sequel dropped the whole found footage formula, which I'm sure was one of the reasons for the success of the first one. Though given how many films have taken that approach since Paranormal Activity, I'm sure that Part II here would be criticised even more if it went down that route a second time. I thought the first film was good enough, but I'm in no rush to go and see a sequel that's clearly a quick cash-grab. It'll still finish up with a nice small profit, but hopefully not enough to make The Really Last Final (We're Not Kidding Around This Time) Exorcism.

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