The Housemaid\u2019s gross has surprised everyone, and it\u2019s put an end to an elongated losing streak on behalf of both Feig and Sweeney. Sweeney had two other significant theatrical releases in 2025, Americana<\/a> and Christy, both of which failed to surpass $2 million. Christy took $1.98 million worldwide during its limited release in November. Earnings for Americana were even worse\u2014and harder to pin down. The film did not receive an international theatrical release, and reports indicate that it took somewhere between $500,000 and $840,000 upon its domestic release in August. (For the record, we dug Americana and thought it was vastly underrated<\/a>.)<\/p>\n The Housemaid is also Feig\u2019s first bona fide hit in at least 10 years. His last movie to crack $200 million was his (likewise underrated) Ghostbusters reboot from 2016. That took almost $230 million worldwide; but it was still considered a flop, and Feig has not worked for a major studio since. His last theatrically released film was 2019\u2019s Last Christmas, which took $123 million worldwide. In the intervening years, he made three movies for streaming services\u2014The School for Good and Evil (2022); Jackpot (2024); and Another Simple Favor (2025), a sequel to his 2018 theatrical release\u2014none of which were embraced by critics.<\/p>\n ‘A Giant Audience…That Needs to Be Served’<\/p>\n The filmmaker has spoken at length about his preference for making female-led films, which have historically been difficult to finance. \u201cI don\u2019t know how many times in my career I\u2019ve had to prove to Hollywood that women will show up at movie theaters, but they still do,\u201d he said. \u201cIt happened with Bridesmaids, it happened with Spy, it happened with The Heat, and Simple Favor to a lesser degree, since it didn\u2019t do as well as I wanted to. But it still is considered a success because the budget was so small. It\u2019s just what I do. I do it over and over and over again. The town always seemed so amazed when women show up. So these movies, I don\u2019t know what it\u2019s going to take for people to just get it that this is a giant audience out there that just needs to be served.\u201d<\/p>\n A sequel, The Housemaid\u2019s Secret, has already been greenlit following on from the semi-cliffhanger ending of The Housemaid. Sweeney\u2019s character returns in the sequel; and though insiders note she\u2019s yet to sign a deal to return, it\u2019s understood that she\u2019ll headline any follow-up.<\/p>\n The Housemaid is in cinemas nationwide.<\/p>\n This story was originally published by Men’s Journal<\/a> on Jan 26, 2026, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Men’s Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Housemaid has put an end to the prolonged losing streaks of both star Sydney Sweeney and director…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":545254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[185,171,180318,21218,120306,175268,67,132,68,239942],"class_list":{"0":"post-545253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-paul-feig","11":"tag-sydney-sweeney","12":"tag-the-housemaid","13":"tag-theatrical-release","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-worldwide-gross"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115963378347031315","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545253","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=545253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"<p>Lionsgate<\/p>\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/be79c91fddf5fe6ff6414570bd13233d.jpeg\"\/)
It’s Feig’s First Hit in a Decade<\/p>\n