One would be forgiven for not knowing about it, but Sydney Sweeney, one of the biggest rising stars in Hollywood, was in a new movie that opened in theaters over the weekend. The film in question is "Americana," which debuted to solid buzz coming out of SXSW in 2023. Yet, it's only just now hitting the big screen after being acquired by Lionsgate early last year. Sad to say, more than two years after its festival debut, the movie was all but ignored at the box office.
Debuting on just over 1,100 screens,
director Tony Tost's "Americana" made just $500,000 on its opening weekend domestically, per Deadline. These numbers weren't even reported by Lionsgate and aren't available via online databases such as Box Office Mojo or The Numbers. In other words, the film is pretty much dead on arrival and will have to make the lion's share of its money on VOD and streaming. Emmy-winner Paul Walter Hauser even stars alongside Sweeney in the movie, making for a very marketable cast. So, what went wrong?
"Americana" follows Penny Jo (Sweeney), a shy waitress with big dreams from a small town, and Lefty (Hauser), a lonely local veteran, as the pair team up to secure a precious artifact -- in the form of a Lakota ghost shirt -- that they hope to use to improve their lots in life. In doing so, however, the two end up drawing the attention of a ruthless criminal (Eric Dane) and his superior (Simon Rex), as well as an Indigenous American gang leader (Zahn McClarnon) and a woman on the run (Halsey).
Ultimately, "Americana" didn't even make it into this weekend's top 10. The only major, new competition was "Nobody 2," which debuted with $9.2 million in the number three spot, placing behind "Freakier Friday" in second and "Weapons" (which once again won the weekend crown, earning $25 million). But none of that suggests there was no room for "Americana." After all, Sweeney is the star who sold soap made out of her own bath water, creating feverish demand online. One would think that sort of drawing power would translate to a few more tickets sold. Then again, Lionsgate was, by design, very conservative with the marketing spend. So, a lot of this could just be chalked up to a lack of awareness.
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Americana Will Make Its Money Back, But That's Not The Problem
Unfortunately, that's just not how the box office works anymore. And this isn't the sort of movie that can slowly find its audience, adding a few theaters at a time. "Americana" will surely be on VOD within a month and that's where it will need to make its money back. The good news is that the movie will, in all likelihood, be able to do just that, simply because it didn't cost Lionsgate all that much.
Bron Studios, which originally backed "Americana," went bankrupt. That held up the film, and in March 2024, Lionsgate swooped in to scoop up the rights in what could essentially be described as a fire sale. As such, the studio gained the global rights for $3 million and quickly sold off some of the non-domestic rights to help cover its expenses. That's an amount that can easily be made up by streaming revenue down the line. Hence, calling this movie a flop would be a little unfair. But that's not really the issue.
The bigger problem is that a star-driven, original film with positive reviews couldn't generate much of any interest at the box office on a weekend where competition wasn't a huge factor. One would think that Sweeney's star power alone should've been enough to power this one to a $1 million opening. Then again, the actor is coming off of the whole American Eagle jeans ad controversy, so who knows.
Either way, it's getting harder and harder for original films to find an audience in theaters. The belief in Hollywood is that Sweeney is an A-lister, particularly after "Anyone But You" became an unexpected $200 million hit. But she's yet to truly prove herself as a butts-in-seats movie star yet, with "Madame Web" flopping and "Immaculate" only becoming a modest hit. In some ways, "Americana" could have been viewed as a test of the limits of her power.
Did the American Eagle controversy hurt the film? Did that ding Sweeney's star status at all? It's impossible to say. She's got a bunch of other projects in the works, including her Christy Martin boxing biopic, which feels like a potential awards season play. We'll just have to see how things shake out in the coming years, but this didn't necessarily do anything to help assert her as an actor who can motivate the masses to get off the couch.
"Americana" is in theaters now.
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Read the original article on SlashFilm.
