Sydney Sweeney really needed a hit right now, and coming off the “Christy” debacle, she must be thanking her lucky stars that “The Housemaid,” a mid-budget, sleazy-fun thriller, is doing gangbusters in theaters at the moment.
Distributed by Lionsgate, “The Housemaid” has benefited greatly from strong word of mouth, pulling in an additional $16M over the three-day frame this weekend — that’s a very low 19% dip from its debut. Expect another small drop this time next weekend, and this one should easily hit $100M domestically.
The thriller, starring Amanda Seyfried and Sweeney, is set to cross $50M by tomorrow, and that’s in just its first 12 days of release. Given its reported $30M budget, along with the cushion of international pre-sales, the film is shaping up to be one of Lionsgate’s most lucrative releases in years.
The film is based on an ultra-popular book — a “monster hit” — written by author Freida McFadden, which has been translated into forty languages, gained massive traction on social media (especially on TikTok), and has sold 4.5 million copies to date. That kind of success doesn’t always translate into box office gold, but Feig’s film is genuinely entertaining.
It should be mentioned that you should probably never count Feig out — he’s the director of such hits as “Bridesmaids,” “The Heat,” “A Simple Favor,” and “Spy” — and it’s been almost a decade since he last made a successful film. His last four efforts, “Last Christmas,” “The School for Good and Evil,” “Jackpot,” and “Another Simple Favor,” were all panned, with some relegated straight to streaming, but “The Housemaid” has also given him a much-needed lifeline.
Sweeney has now capped off what was a rough 2025 — negative headlines, failed Oscar-bait — with what will likely become the biggest movie of her career so far — likely surpassing “Anybody But You” ($88M) early next year.
So, what’s next for Sweeney? She has the third and final season of “Euphoria” airing next spring on HBO, and is set to play Kim Novak in Colman Domingo’s “Scandalous!” Also, keep an eye on Michael Bay’s video game adaptation “OutRun,” which is set up at Universal and, from what I’ve been hearing, has been picking up steam over the last several weeks and could very well shoot next year.
The embargo has lifted on “The End Oak Street,” and we might have one last good studio summer movie in our hands — actually two, if you count “Coyote vs Acme,” which I’ll get to a little later.