I gotta say I’m surprised that Sex and the City 2 underperformed in its opening weekend, raking in only $32.1 million, less than Shrek Forever After, the pointless forth film in the animated series, which made $43.3 million in its second weekend. In NYC I saw hoards of young, fashionably-dressed cliques of girls waiting for sold out shows of SatC 2 in lines that stretched for avenues, but then again, this is the city that never sleeps. Perhaps the rest of the country has grown tired of the fab four and their endless exhibitions of hunky beaus and glitzy, high-end fashions.
With proceeds from Memorial Day on Monday, Sex and the City 2 could match the three-day, $56.8 million opening weekend of its predecessor in five days of theatrical sales. With nary another chick flick in sight (unless you count the underwhelming Letters to Juliet), it’s not competition that’s keeping the audience away. It’s more likely that the abysmal critical reception on Rotten Tomatoes played a part, especially compared to the first film’s lukewarm, but still half-positive, reviews (15% fresh versus 49% for Sex and the City).
Casual Sex fans like myself were disappointed with the first film, largely because it took two established, reasonably healthy relationships – Carrie/Big and Miranda/Steve (three, if you count Samantha/Smith) – and turned them on their heads, all for the sake of two hours of feature film drama. When I heard a sequel was being made, I was pretty sure all four ladies would be victims of relationship annihilation since sequels always seek to one-up the originals in terms of melodrama and spectacle. Fortunately, the reviews I’ve read suggest that the SatC sequel is two times the suck but without destroying two times the relationships.
Unless my girlfriends and I make a date for cosmos and a sequel, I won’t be seeing the new Sex film in theatres. I’d rather pocket the $12.50 and wait for the red-carpet roll-out to home video and premium channels.
