Luca Guadagnino says 'Suspiria' box office disaster stopping him from making sequel

The supernatural horror film movie, starring Dakota Johnson in the lead, was a revival of Dario Argento's classic 1977 film, which was written with Daria Nicolodi and based in part on Thomas De Quincey's 1845 essay "Suspiria de Profundis".

The film narrated the story of a ballet dancer who goes to an elite dance academy and stumbles upon its dark secrets. Ahead of the movie’s world premiere at the 2018 Venice Film Festival, Guadagnino had said that there will be sequel which would dig into the origins of Madame Blanc and Helena Markos (both played by Tilda Swinton) and the future of Suzy Bannion (Johnson). When asked by The Film Stage about the sequel, Guadagnino said, "How? How, my dear? The movie made absolutely nothing. It was a disaster at the box office." "I know that people are liking it more and more now. I loved making that movie. It’s very dear to me. But writer David Kajganich and I had really conceived it as the first half of a bigger story." The Italian filmmaker also gave a glimpse into the story details of the now-junked sequel.

"Sequels are an attitude of the soul. You want to do things because you want to spend time with people that you love, the actors you love, the writers you love… With 'Suspiria', I can tell you that in part two, the storyline was layered in five different time zones and spaces. "One of these was Helena Markos being a charlatan woman in the year 1200 in Scotland, and how she got the secret of longevity," Guadagnino said. "Suspiria" was made on a budget of USD 20 million but earned only USD 7.7 million at the global box office. Critics, however, praised the movie's story, visual elements and acting.