Smile is beating up Bros at the weekend box office
Parker Finn's horror flick kicks off Spooky Season by winning the weekend
Aux News Viola Davis
Maybe chalk it up to the onset of that particular time of year known—obsessively—to the online set as “Spooky Season,” but new horror thriller Smile is apparently on track to win this weekend’s theatrical box office. Per Variety, Parker Finn’s film is set to bring in $19 million from moviegoers this weekend, recovering its entire $17 million budget in one fell swoop, and making it the biggest box office performer of the week. The film stars Sosie Bacon—who’s been getting strong reviews for the performance, including a recent shout-out from Stephen King—as a psychologist who becomes haunted by a mysterious curse after witnessing a patient’s suicide.
Among other things, that $19 million figure puts Smile well ahead of the other big opener this weekend: The Billy Eichner-led Bros, which is currently projected to score $4.7 million from rom-com fans. As Variety notes, the film—which has gotten almost universally positive reviews from critics, including an A- from our own Leigh Monson—doesn’t have a huge mountain to climb if it wants to make up its $22 million budget, but that’s still not an especially good start. (Whether the weak opening can be more attributed to possible audience hesitation at a rare studio romantic comedy focused on two gay men, or just the general financial woes of the rom-com genre generally, is initially kind of hard to say.)
Bros will likely end up coming in fourth for the weekend, trailing behind the second and third weeks, respectively, for Don’t Worry Darling and The Woman King. Both films had fairly standard box office drops as their time in theaters extended, although Viola Davis’ action movie is holding steadier than Olivia Wilde’s buzzy sci-fi thriller.
21 Comments
Saw Bros last night I laughed harder than I have at any movie in a long, long time. Go see it!
Same. It made me laugh consistently. It’s been a while since we’ve gotten a decent comedy in theaters.
WhenWill IWill I be famous?
I can’t answer.I can’t answer that.
I mean one of them was in Hellboy 2 and Blade 2 , they could have had him in this movie!
And he played Steve Fox in that Tekken film, I don’t think any of us have forgotten that.
Or his appearances in Fringe!
Fans of horror movies (which are by definition scary, usually brutalize their protagonist, and have no guarantee of a happy ending) are thrill-seekers who are less likely to be put off by the risks of going to a movie theater (catching an infectious disease, paying too much for snacks, etc.).Fans of rom-coms (which are usually warm, reassuring, and carry the implicit promise that characters will end up better off than they began) are risk-averse and enjoy the comforts of home viewing.This is a crackpot theory I just made up.
…paying too much for snacks is a risk?
Yes.
…paying $5 for a bag of M&Ms seems like a stretch of the definition “something bad,” but that’s just me.
You can always sneak snacks in or eat before seeing the movie.
Yeah, I usually eat before seeing the movie. Not really understanding the “risk” part. It’s my choice to pay $8 for a movie hot dog.
It seems like a pretty valid theory to me. Plus horror movies always carry the threat of spoilers. Like, people know there’ll be death, but the questions of stuff like does the protagonist survive, is the villain/curse/etc still active at the end, or what are the most thrilling kills can be easily ruined by the internet or even friends who have seen the movie first. Everyone knows how a rom-com will end by the time the trailer ends, the only thing that can be spoiled are jokes, and even if someone tells you the joke, it’ll always be funnier in the context of watching the movie.
That… is probably a better explanation. But they could both be true!
Future tip for film executives and producers, don’t hire a zero charisma unlikeable actor to be the lead in a rom-com….straight or gay.
I love Eichner but I can appreciate that he is an acquired taste.
Are you trying to say Billy Eichner is uncharismatic
I think I am. 😉
i won’t completely discount homophobia as a factor in the underperformance of Bros, but this also just seems like a weird time to drop it. a movie like that would probably do so much better around Valentine’s Day or in mid-spring. putting it up against a horror movie on the first weekend of spooky season was always gonna be a tough hang, imo
People just want to see spectacle in theaters. Just saying if Billy Eichner would have scaled a skyscraper in Dubai or had an evil twin growing out of the back of his head then Bros might have beaten Smile.