Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Moms, it’s time to swap the paperback copy of “Normal People” for a movie ticket. “Book Club: The Next Chapter” opens on the big screen this weekend, and the sequel to 2018’s sleeper-hit septuagenarian comedy is expected to earn $7 million to $10 million from 3,507 North American theaters in its debut.
Focus Features is hoping the film, which reunites the core group of readers in Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen, will bring out the same crowd of older females that powered the first “Book Club” to $68 million domestically and $104 million globally.
The original, which was released by Paramount, debuted to $13.5 million. The $20 million-budgeted sequel faces a tougher theatrical landscape than the first, with older audiences more reluctant to go to the movies because of the pandemic.
But given the built-in awareness that benefits second films in a franchise, it’s surprising that “Book Club 2” is tracking below Paramount’s “80 for Brady,” a similarly lightweight comedy that opened earlier this year to $12.7 million.
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