Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (Exclusive Series) (Hulu/Amazon Prime/Starz)

Initial release date: July 16, 2021

Studios: Sony-Columbia/Original Films

Tagline: Winning was just the beginning

Plot: Six people unwittingly find themselves locked in another series of escape rooms, slowly uncovering what they have in common to survive - and discovering they’ve all played the game before.

Cast

Taylor Russell - Zoey Davis

Logan Miller - Ben Miller

Thomas Cocquerel - Nathan

Holland Roden - Rachel Ellis

Indya Moore - Brianne Collier

Carlito Olivero - Theo

Isabelle Fuhrman - Claire (extended cut only)

James Frain - Henry (extended cut only)

Writer(s): Will Honley (Bloodline)

Maria Melnik (Escape Room)

Daniel Tuch

Oren Uziel (Mortal Kombat; the upcoming The Lost City; Netflix’s The Cloverfield Paradox)

Director: Adam Robitel (Escape Room; Insidious: The Last Key)

Rated PG-13 for violence, terror/peril and strong language (88 minutes)

The 2019 thriller ‘Escape Room’ was a bit of a surprise and ended up being better than I originally anticipated. The eventual sequel (which was teased in the 2019 movie) quickly came out two years later.

‘Escape Room: Tournament of Champions’ starts off immediately after the first movie and the thrills start right off the bat. The action is awesome and there are some really suspenseful moments.

Not going into spoiler territory here. But, there are definitely quite a few parts that are really predictable and kinda make you think “why did this particular character do that?” The ending did feel a little rushed and does leave it open for a potential third movie. Yet, doing a second sequel could be confusing since there are two different versions that have been released. And the extended version pretty much changes the entire plot. I only have seen the theatrical version and only looked up stuff about the extended version.

The theatrical version of ‘Escape Room 2’ is streaming on the Hulu and Amazon Prime streaming platforms via the Starz add-on.

Here are a few interesting tidbits for ‘Tournament of Champions’:

• The first ‘Escape Room’ (2019) received more than $150 million with a budget of $9 million leading Sony to create a sequel.

• The movie’s official title, ‘Escape Room: Tournament of Champions,’ was announced in a press conference on May 20, 2021.

• The movie was originally scheduled to be released on April 17, 2020 and its release date was subsequently changed several times.

• Prior to release, the extended cut of the movie was reported to feature 25 minutes of new footage; however, upon release, it was discovered that the extended cut runtime was only 6 minutes longer than the theatrical cut.

• The extended version largely reshapes the plot of the movie. This large change in narration has led critics to wonder how future installments of the franchise will be affected by these “incompatible” plotlines.

• ‘Tournament of Champions’ grossed $25.3 million in the US and Canada, and $26.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $51.9 million.