Universal and Blumhouse’s horror sequel “ Black Phone 2 ” kicked off spooky season with $26.5 million from 3,411 North American theaters. Those ticket sales were enough to lead an otherwise sleepy weekend at the domestic box office.

“Black Phone 2” opened in line with expectations and slightly ahead of its predecessor. The original “Black Phone” launched with $23 million in 2021 as cinemas were only starting to recover from COVID. Just to give a sense of the vastly different box office landscape between the first and second film: With almost identical ticket sales, “Black Phone” opened in fourth place behind “Elvis,” “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Jurassic World: Dominion” in the height of summer movie season.

In contrast, the “Black Phone” follow-up had a sluggish October mostly to itself.

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