The Strangers – Chapter 2 has finally arrived, and the film has received mixed reviews from audiences. But despite The Strangers 2‘s poor Rotten Tomatoes performance, the film still has plenty of redeeming features for horror fans, and importantly, feels like it’s improved in many of the areas where the first movie faltered.

The reason for this is clear – all three movies of the new The Strangers trilogy were filmed back-to-back in 2022, with additional photography taking place after the first movie’s release to incorporate audience feedback. This means that while there’s always been a clear direction, the writers have the freedom to change certain aspects depending on the films’ reception.

Interestingly, this is far from the first time a movie franchise has been shot this way. Filming sequels back-to-back has been a practice for decades now, but there’s a reason many franchises still aren’t doing it. It comes with a huge amount of risk, forcing the crew to go all-in before seeing how audiences will respond to the project.

The Strangers 2 Would Have Benefited From Individual Shoots

The Strangers franchise has historically done pretty well at the box office, so it’s not that surprising that Lionsgate decided to green-light such an ambitious undertaking. And the first movie proved them right – The Strangers: Chapter One pulled in $48 million worldwide, which was a noticeable improvement over the previous installment.

However, that commercial success didn’t translate into a critical one. The Strangers: Chapter One received very underwhelming reviews from critics, and it immediately became clear that something would have to change in order to keep this franchise afloat for the next two entries. So Lionsgate agreed to some additional shoots.

At this point, the whole purpose of back-to-back filming becomes somewhat obsolete. If you’re just going to reshoot the sequels to appease the fans’ criticisms of the first movie, it would be much more efficient to simply wait until the first one has been released before getting started on the subsequent ones.

And it’s not only a problem of efficiency, but financing too. The Strangers 2 has underperformed at the box office, meaning all that extra money Lionsgate had to spend on the reshoots may not even be made back. This means it’s also going to be difficult for The Strangers 3 to regain the momentum that’s now been lost.

It’s easy to see why The Strangers franchise was drawn towards this back-to-back filming method, but it never made sense for this particular property. You don’t have to look any further than the original Strangers movies to see that this franchise simply isn’t great at making sequels, and audiences know that.

The Strangers: Prey at Night was a direct sequel to 2008’s original, and the film made less than half as much at the box office. It pulled in just $31 million compared to the originals’ $82 million, essentially hanging the series out to dry for another six years.

By choosing to film three sequels in one fell swoop, Lionsgate pushed all its chips in on a franchise that was already drastically underperforming. If The Strangers: Chapter 1 had continued the same box office trend as its predecessor, it wouldn’t have broken even at the box office – and there still would have been two sequels in the can.

Filming Sequels Back-To-Back Is High Risk, High Reward

None of this is to say that filming sequels back-to-back is an inherently bad idea – it just needs to be done under the right conditions. The most notorious example of how to get this strategy right is Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, in which principal photography for all three movies was carried out at the same time.

While this was still hugely risky, it was ultimately worth the chance because Jackson had a huge budget, a clear directorial vision, and a property that he knew audiences would respond warmly to. The Strangers franchise had none of this, and that’s why filming back-to-back didn’t make sense in this particular case.

Unfortunately, not every franchise can be The Lord of the Rings. Properties like The Matrix and Pirates of the Caribbean also decided to film some of their sequels back-to-back, and they had much less positive results. The Matrix sequels have a notoriously bad reputation, and On Stranger Tides is widely regarded as the beginning of the end for Pirates.

The most obvious example of back-to-back filming going completely wrong is Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga – a series of four planned movies that currently waits in limbo while Warner Bros. considers how best to navigate the first movie’s bad performance. The Strangers isn’t quite in this spot, but it’s suffering from many of the same problems.

Back-to-back filming can be a very fruitful way of saving time and effort on franchises that have reliable box office metrics, like Lord of the Rings did, but it ultimately proves too risky for franchises that don’t have that security. The continuing downward trajectory of The Strangers franchise should have proven this horror property was not worthy of back-to-back filming.

Release Date

September 26, 2025

Runtime

96 Minutes

Director

Renny Harlin

Writers

Alan Freedland, Alan R. Cohen, Amber Loutfi

Producers

Courtney Solomon

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  Richard Brake

  Sheriff Rotter