One of 2018's surprise hits was Book Club — a comedy film starring four of entertainment's biggest stars: Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen. The Bill Holderman and Erin Simms project grossed over $100 million worldwide and was hoping to replicate that success with its sequel, The Next Chapter. Unfortunately, the opening weekend gross of the sequel was disappointing, to say the least.

Despite strategically releasing during Mother's Day Weekend — something the first Book Club missed by a week in 2018 — The Next Chapter grossed just $6.5 million domestically and $3,145,000 overseas during its opening weekend for a total of $9,645,000.

While $6.5 million for a non-comic book film isn't the worst-case scenario, the first Book Club grossed $13,582,231 domestically during its first weekend despite being in nearly 800 fewer theaters (The Next Chapter opened 3,508 theaters against the first film's 2,781). This is surely a disappointing result for Holderman and Simms who are deserving of, and likely hoping for a third in the series.

But should this really come as a huge surprise? After all, the first Book Club was distributed by Paramount — one of the world's biggest studios. The Next Chapter took its ball over to Focus Features, which specializes in arthouse films and is Universal Pictures' arthouse division (think of how Lexus is Toyota's luxury brand). They have put out films for a similar demographic, the Downton Abbey feature film from 2019 grossed a whopping $194 million on a $13 million budget. Granted, it was the first film spun off from an uber-popular series — like The Next Chapter, the Downton Abbey sequel didn't fare quite as well and failed to gross $100 million during its run.

Hopefully, The Next Chapter is able to leg out and prove that this Mother's Day weekend was an anomaly. The film is quite fun but perhaps the pandemic and its effects on the rise of streaming had an impact on the box office numbers.

Book Club: The Next Chapter is in theaters now.