After it failed to garner any traction at the box office, a 2024 Blumhouse movie is finding renewed success on Netflix. The indie studio best known for their horror output has enjoyed something of a mixed bag in the past couple of years when it's come to both the critical and commercial reception to their movies. For every record-breaking M3GAN and Five Nights at Freddy's, there's also been a near-franchise-destroying The Exorcist: Believer and lackluster Halloween Ends.

2024, in particular, has been something of a rockier year for Blumhouse. Having hoped to recapture the January release success of M3GAN, the horror short adaptation of Night Swim proved to be a critical misfire, albeit a modest box office success. The studio followed it up with four other releases, including the similarly panned Imaginary and the James McAvoy-starring English-language remake of Speak No Evi l, which was a critical and commercial hit. There was one release among the studio's 2024 schedule, though, that nearly marked a new low for Blumhouse, but is finding a new kind of success.

AfrAId Is Starting Off High On Netflix's Charts

The Movie Hit A Box Office Low For Blumhouse

Written and directed by Oscar nominee Chris Weitz, AfrAId centers on a family who are invited to participate in a trial run for a new smart home artificial intelligence program named AIA, only for it to start spiraling out of control and taking over their lives. Led by John Cho, Katherine Waterston, Havana Rose Liu and Keith Carradine, the movie garnered largely negative reviews from critics. AfrAId was also a box office disappointment, marking Blumhouse's lowest opening weekend at the box office and only grossing $12.9 million against its $12 million production budget.

Now, upon making its streaming debut, AfrAId is finding success on Netflix. The 2024 Blumhouse movie currently sits at No. 9 on the platform, being situated just ahead of 2015's Minions. In addition to landing on Netflix's Top 10, the movie is also the only horror title ranking so high at the time of writing, with the rest of the chart including Lindsay Lohan's Our Little Secret, Skydance's Spellbound, Chad Michael Murray's The Merry Gentlemen, Kurt Russell's The Christmas Chronicles, Illumination's The Secret Life of Pets, Lacey Chabert's Hot Frosty, Owen Wilson's Father Figures and Illumination's Sing.

Could An AfrAId Sequel Be On The Horizon?

The Movie Certainly Left The Door Open For More

John Cho as Curtis looking worried and holding Melody in AfrAId

With this renewed success, some may begin to wonder whether an AfrAId sequel could be on the horizon. Unlike many other Blumhouse movies, in the lead up to the 2024 title's release, Weitz didn't offer any indication as to whether he was considering a follow-up to the tech horror-thriller. Moreover, the movie's lackluster box office didn't really inspire these discussions among viewers, which wasn't helped by AfrAId's surprisingly minimal marketing compared to other Blumhouse releases, and failing to overcome Dennis Quaid's Reagan in their shared release weekend, or dethrone the continued success of Deadpool & Wolverine.

AfrAId has since climbed further on Netflix's Top 10 since the article's original publishing, now sitting in the No. 5 spot behind Our Little Secret , Spellbound , The Merry Gentlemen and fellow new debut The Snow Sister .

Even still, should the movie continue to climb Netflix's charts, it seems hard to believe Blumhouse wouldn't consider an AfrAId sequel. The first movie's ending left the door wide open for a whole world of follow-ups as AIA has been released to the public, but still manipulating a wide range of people's lives, setting up a variety of potential spinoffs in the same vein as Smile 2's ending. That said, there's still a very long road ahead before Blumhouse will eye an AfrAId sequel, particularly when factoring in its lackluster box office.

Our Take On AfrAId's Streaming Success

It May Not Last Much Longer

AfrAId's success on streaming certainly doesn't come as much of a surprise. The movie's fresh debut on Netflix clearly helped put new eyes on it, though Blumhouse is renowned for having a variety of movies find success on streaming, regardless of how they did in theaters. Night Swim is one such example from Blumhouse's 2024 slate, and was helped in part by Stephen King's defense of the movie.

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That being said, AfrAId's longevity on streaming may not be as strong as its debut outing indicates. The arrival of the Christmas season is already evident by half of Netflix's other titles on the top chart, and unless audiences start spreading positive things about the Blumhouse horror movie, it seems unlikely that it will stay in the Top 10 much longer. Considering AfrAId's audience score is 51% on Rotten Tomatoes, it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility for it to get some defenders, but I don't see it happening.

Source: Netflix