Sydney Sweeney’s New Thriller Hits Worldwide Box Office Milestone That Is Almost Unprecedented

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The movie The Housemaid is proving to be a box office success. Based on the popular thriller novel by Freida McFadden, the film was directed by Paul Feig and stars Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, and Brandon Sklenar. While it opened at number three domestically the weekend before Christmas, it’s been steadily gaining momentum with very small decreases in ticket sales each week.

According to Variety, The Housemaid is expected to reach around $150 million worldwide by the end of its fourth week in cinemas. So far, it has earned $93 million in the US and Canada, and $57 million internationally, with more international releases still to come.

The new thriller The Housemaid is expected to be a huge success, potentially earning over $150 million worldwide. This would be a significant achievement, as few English-language thrillers reach that level of earnings. For comparison, director Paul Feig’s earlier film, A Simple Favor, made $97.6 million globally in 2018.

Many films have recently surpassed the $100 million mark by combining thriller elements with genres like action (e.g., Bullet Train), sci-fi (Blade Runner 2049), disaster movies (Twisters), and heist stories (Now You See Me: Now You Don’t). However, the last straightforward thriller in English to reach that level of success was the 2023 film Sound of Freedom, which sparked considerable discussion.

Before the film Sound of Freedom earned over $250.7 million globally, English-language thrillers hadn’t reached $150 million in box office revenue since before the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to that, films like Joker (over $1.079 billion) and Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood ($377.4 million) were major successes in 2019.

Beyond reaching this impressive mark, the Sydney Sweeney film has achieved a lot in its first 24 days in cinemas. It’s become Sweeney’s highest-grossing movie domestically where she’s the lead actor, beating out her previous hit, Anyone But You. It’s also director Paul Feig’s most successful non-comedy film, earning more than A Simple Favor.

As a critic, I’m seeing a real success story here. The film cost around $35 million to produce, meaning it needed to earn roughly $87.5 million just to break even – standard for most Hollywood productions. It’s already almost doubled that, which is fantastic, and honestly, being a Lionsgate release definitely gave it a boost in getting noticed.

The studio typically finances its films by selling rights to international markets in advance, which significantly lowers the amount of money a film needs to earn to become profitable. Because of this, The Housemaid was already generating a profit well before reaching this major worldwide box office achievement.

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2026-01-11 21:18