STXfilms
"Hustlers."
- STXfilms' "Hustlers" wins the domestic box office with a $33.2 million opening.
- That's the best opening weekend ever for STXfilms and for a Jennifer Lopez live-action movie.
- Meanwhile, Warner Bros./Amazon Studios' "The Goldfinch" only took in $2.6 million on its opening weekend.
- "The Goldfinch" had one of the worst openings by a major studio this year, made worse by the fact the movie was made for $45 million.
- $4
Jennifer Lopez is having a remarkable career resurgence, and the box office performance by "Hustlers" is the proof.
STXfilms' gritty true-life gangster movie about a group of former strippers who ripped off Wall Street businessmen by drugging them and then maxing out their credit cards came in first place at the domestic box office this weekend with an estimated $33.2 million.
The opening set multiple records, including:
- Blowing past the $4 industry projections for the movie.
- The opening marks the biggest ever for STXfilms (the previous being $4).
- It's also the biggest opening of a Jennifer Lopez live-action movie in her career (she voiced a character in the 2015 movie "Home," which $4).
But "Hustlers" didn't just have the support of J. Lo's fan base. The cast also included Constance Wu, Cardi B, Lizzo, and Lili Reinhart, who made it a can't-miss movie for their majority female fans as 67% of the opening weekend audience was female.
The movie as a whole also earned its fair share of buzz. The movie has an $4 (71% audience score), and the Oscar buzz for Lopez' performance as the ring leader of the group has grown since it had its world premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last weekend.
For the five-year-old STXfilms it's a huge win. Since releasing the surprise box office hit "The Upside" in January, starring Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston, the studio had $4 like "Poms" and "Uglydolls." The studio nabbed "Hustlers" when the movie's original distributor, Annapurna Pictures, dropped the title in 2018.
However, things weren't all cheery at the multiplex this weekend. Warner Bros./Amazon Studios' adaptation of Donna Tartt's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Goldfinch" starring Ansel Elgort and Nicole Kidman was a complete dud its opening weekend. The $4 only brought in $870,000 on Friday and has an estimated $2.6 million for the weekend (it played on 2,542 screens).
That's one of the worst openings by a film from a major studio this year.