{"id":185357,"date":"2025-08-29T19:26:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T19:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/185357\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T19:26:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T19:26:09","slug":"sydney-sweeney-had-two-box-office-bombs-can-toronto-break-the-curse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/185357\/","title":{"rendered":"Sydney Sweeney Had Two Box Office Bombs. Can Toronto Break the Curse?\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThis year\u2019s August dump of indie films that gathered dust for years hasn\u2019t been kind to Sydney Sweeney<\/a>, one of Hollywood\u2019s most in-demand young actresses whose summer of discontent also includes a major backlash over an American Eagle Jeans campaign that even resulted in President Donald Trump giving her a shoutout for being a registered Republican.<\/p>\n

\n\tSweeney has been riding a wave of enviable success since 2019, from her breakthrough work in HBO\u2019s Euphoria and a small part in Quentin Tarantino\u2019s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, to her Emmy-nominated role as the entitled daughter of a female tech mogul in the first season of Mike White\u2019s The White Lotus.<\/p>\n

\n\tThen there was Anyone But You, the Glen Powell two-hander that put studio rom-coms back on the map. It opened in theaters over the Christmas holidays in 2023 on its way to grossing north of $220 million, a sum that even caught Sony executives by surprise.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat no one realized was that Sweeney was supposed to have another film hit theaters that year \u2014 Americana, a modern-day Western in which she plays a waitress who gets caught up in a scheme to peddle stolen Native American artifacts, and whose troubled brother believes he\u2019s the incarnation of Sitting Bull.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe obscure indie film, directed by Tony Tost, made its debut in at SXSW in spring of 2023, but couldn\u2019t find a U.S. distributor until this year, when Lionsgate Premiere picked up U.S. rights. The film opened to a mere $500,000 from roughly 1,100 theaters over the Aug. 15-17 weekend, one of the worst showings of all time for a title going out in that many cineplexes. The film\u2019s cast also includes Paul Walter Hauser and Halsey. Insiders claim that Americana did just fine for Lionsgate Premiere, which banks more on home entertainment than theatrical, but even Tost acknowledged that the opening was a disappointment, when he wrote on X Aug. 21 that the film \u201cgobbled up by the zeitgeist.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe heaping on didn\u2019t end there for Sweeney. A week later, Ron Howard\u2019s indie film Eden opened in theaters to a forgettable $1 million from 664 theaters nearly a year after the period survival thriller premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival to middling reviews. Like Americana, buyers passed on picking up Eden despite its veteran director and A-list ensemble cast led by Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, Ana de Armas, Daneil Br\u00fchl and Sweeney. Eden, which has a 57 percent critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, is based on the true story of a tiny group of European settlers who escape to the Gal\u00e1pagos Island following World War I.<\/p>\n

\n\tThose close to the actress say she is being unfairly maligned over the box office results, considering both were ensembles pics, and especially Eden. They also say Sweeney harbors no regrets for the choices she and her team have made. The Paradigm-repped actress has been laying low, however, but won\u2019t be able to for much longer.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe\u2019s preparing to return to TIFF for the Sept. 5 world premiere of David Michod\u2019s biographical sports drama Christy. The film follows the real-life story of queer former professional boxer Christy Martin, nicknamed \u201cThe Caol Miner\u2019s Daughter.\u201d Sources speculate that Sweeney\u2019s performance in the Black Bear Pictures film could land her a spot in the awards race. The movie is a big swing for the star, who gained some 30 pounds for the role and was coached by Martin.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd Sweeney will be in theaters on Christmas Day with Lionsgate\u2019s high-profile The Housemaid, a psychological thriller filmmaker Paul Feig that also stars Amanda Seyfried. The year-end holidays can be one of the most lucrative corridors of the year in terms of being able to support multiple movies in the marketplace if a title clicks with its target audience. Lionsgate (and likely Sweeney) is hoping that The Housemaid will clean up at the box office based on the 2022 book\u2019s popularity and the movie\u2019s two stars. It will also give younger females a chance to see something other than Avatar: Fire and Ash, which also opens over the year-end holidays. Given that the movie solely rests on her, rather than an ensemble, it will be a key test. <\/p>\n

\n\tOne source close to Christy says Sweeney remains a big star with enormous brand recognition, and that two small indie films tanking hasn\u2019t hurt her career. \u201cShe is not damaged,\u201d this person says. \u201cBut outside of doing press in Toronto, she probably needs to stay quiet for a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This year\u2019s August dump of indie films that gathered dust for years hasn\u2019t been kind to Sydney Sweeney,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":149342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[171,21218,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-185357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-sydney-sweeney","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}