as well as a private screening of Book of Shadows with Manson in attendance. On October 22, the Sci-Fi Channel premiered Shadow of the Blair Witch, a pseudo-documentary following Book of Shadowss protagonist, Jeff and others who are transfixed by the Blair Witch phenomenon. The documentary recontextualizes Book of Shadows as being a Hollywood film based upon actual events that happened in the Blair Witch universe. The fictional documentary charts both the mythology of the Blair Witch alongside Jeff's criminal prosecution for the murders depicted in the film. Box office Book of Shadows had its world premiere at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles on October 24, 2000. It was released theatrically in on 3,600 screens in six countriesincluding United States, Canada, and the United Kingdomon October 27. In the United States, the film debuted at number 2 at the box office, earning $13 million during its opening weekend playing on 3,317 screens. After eight weeks, it finished with a total domestic gross of $26,421,314. Overall, internationally the film grossed $47,737,094. Critical response Critical reaction to Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 upon release was generally negative. Internet review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 14% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 108 reviews, with an average rating of 3.37/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "This sequel to Blair Witch Project is all formula and no creativity, mechanically borrowing elements from the original and other horror movies". Metacritic reported, based on 34 reviews, a weighted average score of 15 out of 100, indicating "overwhelming dislike". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D−" on an A+ to F scale. In a review published in The Guardian: "Everything—and I mean everything—that made The Blair Witch Project a little indie masterpiece has been falsified and trashed in this spectacularly bad sequel". Roger Ebert, who gave the first film four stars (out of four), gave Book of Shadows two stars, calling it "a muddled, sometimes-atmospheric effort that could have come from many filmmakers" and "not a very lucid piece of filmmaking". Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly awarded the film a C−, calling it "a flat heebie jeebies thriller". Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film is "better made than the original, and its writing contains a subtlety and wit the original film lacked". Anwar Brett of the BBC rated the film