Even with the drop for fifty shades darker

From the same reason people flock to see Transformers or any other bad series movie: the target audience doesn't care if its bad or good in the eyes of the critics, they just care that it exists.

Who says they did? The first one made $571m, $249m of that after its OW weekend, so its core audience clearly liked it even if it was frontloaded. Which is why the even with a lower overseas opening the film has already nearly trebled its budget WW while Lego Batman has only just grossed $12.6m over its reported budget. Like Twilight its success is no more surprising than people still seeing DC movies even after they churn out one terrible movie after another.


"Security - release the badgers."

At least DC had made previous good films (not the DECU though) while fifty shades of crap has yet to make one good movie.

after admitting the first one was crap?

Did they, I know the cinemascore went down, but the first movie became an event, that overreached over is core audience (the book reader).

All point out that the core audience, did like it enough to have some faith in a sequel, and the cinemascore going up show what usual franchise sequel tend to do, now seen by fans that liked the first.

When you consider that the book sales were around 125 million unit, say that it is 70 million indivual reader that have seen the book.

You can have a giant world box office with less than half the reader going in theater.

many people still choose to see this after admitting the first one was crap?

Mean answer: Look at all the morons who continue to chomp at the bit for Justice League, after everything else we've had to sit through. It's the same thing.

Kinder answer: No matter how much of a (mostly male) critical consensus may all agree about the merits, or lack thereof, of E.L. James' works, you cannot come to any objective conclusions about how much a film was liked, beyond the numbers it pulls in. Yes, the first film was very frontloaded, suggesting either bad WOM, or a very poor reach outside of a devoted fanbase, but there were obviously plenty of people who liked the film. Targeting an older audience means that there's less fervent brand loyalty than there was for, say, Twilight, but it's still there.
And, in the end, it doesn't really do any harm. It's not the first film series with lax quality standards to do well. It won't be the last. Some people make a bit of money, and the target audience enjoy some disposable pap that will end up in clogging charity shops in 10 years time.

Shut it, Love Actually! Do you want me to hole punch your face?

I think it's pretty obvious not everyone regarded it as crap. Films only need a weighted score over 8/10 to be ranked in the top 250 at IMDB (i.e. among the greatest films ever made), and according to IMDB stats 21% of its audience rated it 8/10 or more. So one out of every five viewers clearly thought it was a great film. Another 16% rated it 6 or 7 out of 10 (basically a solid 3-star movie) meaning 37% of its viewers like it. Another 11% gave it a five meaning they thought it was ok, so 48%—roughly half its audience—clearly didn't think it was crap and would probably give the sequel a chance, which appears to be the case.

Also, IMDB stats are skewed towards younger male viewers rather than older females (males under 30 outnumbered females over 30 by 2:1 in the voting stats), whereas according to BOM two-thirds of the audience were female, so it is probable the majority of its core audience actually liked it.

Well, based on the drop it showed from the first, it's clear that there were a lot of people who saw the first, didn't like it and didn't come back for the second, but like with any movie it has its fans and they returned for the sequel, which explains why the cinemascore is higher despite the even bigger critical trashing: the audience that saw it were the ones who were more forgiving of the first.

Plus, there's also the brand strength to go on. Millions of people read the books and even if they didn't like the first film, it usually takes more than one film to completely kill a franchise (as DCEU has shown). I know more than one person who said something essentially along the lines of "I didn't like the first film but I loved the books so I'll check out the second" and while I know I'm taking a ridiculously small sample size of the total audience that went to see this film, I wouldn't be surprised if many other people came in with a similar mindset.

Plus, I think here on IMDB boards we put way more stock into a film's reviews/reception than typical moviegoers. To most people, blowing off a few bucks to spend a night out with friends/dates is hardly seen as a catastrophe if the movie turns out bad. Most likely, they'll watch it, have a good time and then forget about it. I've never seen anyone in real life say "that movie was so painful! I can't believe I spent good money on it!" A far cry from the "This movie ruined my childhood!" complaints you see on the internet.