Stuart Little 2
- Rate Movie[Total: 28 Average: 3.8]
Box Office Info:
Budget: $120 million | Financed by: Sony |
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Domestic Gross: $64,956,806 | Overseas Gross: $105,000,000 |
After the surprise success of Stuart Little (1999), which pulled in $300.1M worldwide on a $103M budget, Sony financed Stuart Little 2 for an expensive $120 million. The sequel was dated for July 19, 2002 and was apart of Sony’s summer slate of expensive tentpoles: Spider-Man, Men in Black II and XXX. The studio gave Stuart Little 2 a $50 million marketing blitz in the domestic market and in addition had promotional tie-ins with Wendy’s, AT&T and others — worth tens of millions in exposure.
Stuart Little 2 bowed against K-19: The Widowmaker and Eight Legged Freaks and pulled in a disappointing $15,115,152 — placing #2 for the weekend behind Road To Perdition in its second frame. The opening numbers were exactly what the first film opened with and there was hope part 2 would have the incredible legs the first picture had. The second weekend saw a 29.8% decline to $10,612,127 which was about in line with the first movie’s 21.3% second weekend drop — but the first pic saw a huge third weekend box office increase over the christmas frame and Part 2 suffered in a crowded summer market and fell 42.4% to $6,111,359. Stuart Little 2 continued to struggle and burned out with $64,956,806.
The first installment pulled in $160 million overseas and Part 2 also saw that market shrink, where it grossed $105 million. The worldwide total was $169.9 million. Sony would see returned about $93.4M after theaters take their percentage of the gross, which likely covered only their P&A expenses. Sony abandoned plans for another expensive sequel and churned out Part 3 as a crudely animated cheapie for the video market. After a strong quarter of films, in a Sony financial report they cited the ‘disappointing U.S. box office performance of Stuart Little 2, Stealing Harvard and Trapped‘ as eating into their profits.
Fun fact: Although it ranked #2 for the weekend proper (Friday to Sunday), for the week as a whole (Friday to Thursday), Stuart Little 2 ranked #1 with a 7-day gross of $24,112,511, compared to Road to Perdition’s $22,648,657.