‘The Strangers: Chapter 3’ Bombs With Critics (13%) and Audiences ($450K) — Who Allowed Renny Harlin to Direct A Trilogy?

Lionsgate has officially shipped “The Strangers: Chapter 3” into theaters, and with that, one of the strangest studio gambles of the last decade is finally nearing its end — the film only earned $450k in Thursday previews. This trilogy — conceived as a low-budget horror cash grab and sold as a so-called “return to roots” — now stands as one of the most baffling franchise rollouts in recent memory.

All three films were produced back-to-back in Slovakia on roughly the same $9–10M budget each, and that’s before factoring in the extensive reshoots that plagued the series. The strategy was obvious: shoot cheap, release fast, and hope nostalgia does the rest. At first, it almost worked. “The Strangers: Chapter 1” (2024) rode brand recognition to a respectable $48M worldwide, enough to squeak out a profit and briefly justify Lionsgate’s gamble.

Then the wheels came off. “The Strangers: Chapter 2” (2025) collapsed to roughly $22M worldwide, losing over half of its audience after a year-long delay — all three films were originally meant to be released within the same year — and studio-mandated reshoots intended to “fix” the backlash. Those fixes — namely expanding the Strangers’ backstory — only seem to have made things worse.

Now comes “The Strangers: Chapter 3,” quietly dumped into Super Bowl weekend with fewer theaters, weaker marketing, and seemingly no confidence from the studio. It’s tracking to earn less than both previous films, and early reactions suggest it may be the most reviled entry yet. The Rotten Tomatoes score currently sits at 13%, dragging the trilogy’s average RT score down to an abysmal 16%.

This is yet another flop added to Renny Harlin’s ever-expanding résumé — a career so baffling that almost anyone else would’ve been exiled from the industry. He actually already shot his next film, this one starring Melissa Barrera and John Travolta.

What makes the ‘Strangers’ fiasco especially unique is how calculated it all was. All three films were shot simultaneously in mid-2022. Yes, Lionsgate allowed the infamous Renny Harlin to shoot three movies in a row for them — which, in and of itself, is a wild decision. But hey, don’t worry, Harlin is apparently working on a 4.5 hour director’s cut of all three films.

Harlin did have early successes in his career (“Die Hard 2,” “Cliffhanger”), but it’s been a real struggle for him over the past 30 years. It’s hard to think of another active studio filmmaker with a longer streak of critical and commercial failures. And no, don’t say Uwe Boll — he’s a special case, largely self-financing his films.

Harlin’s cinematic nadirs include “Cutthroat Island,” “Driven,” “Exorcist: The Beginning,” “Mindhunters,” and “The Legend of Hercules.” It’s not all bad, though. He did direct 1996’s excellent “The Long Kiss Goodnight,” his lone great film — and one hell of a twisty noir. That was 30 years ago, and yet he somehow continues to chug along — his career will one day be a case study in failing upward, and the sheer durability of competent mediocrity in Hollywood.