Box Office Report: 'Smile' Because David O. Russell's 'Amsterdam' Is Flopping!

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | October 10, 2022 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | October 10, 2022 |

It wasn’t a great weekend at the box office despite a few new releases. As Box Office Mojo noted, this is the 11th in a row under $100 million and the seventh in a row under $65 million. It’s a bad stretch, similar to the semi-lockdown Summer of 2021. But that was good news for Smile, Paramount’s horror movie that benefitted from a very effective marketing campaign.

With a mere 22% drop from the previous weekend, Smile brought in an extra $17.6 million, which brings its domestic total to just under $50 million. Paramount originally wanted this to be a streaming exclusive. Smart choice to move it to cinemas. Hey, they can afford to take a wee risk or two thanks to all that Top Gun: Maverick money.

That movie, by the way, is still in the top ten after 20 weeks and has over $714.6 million in the bank domestically. It’s easily the highest-grossing film of 2022 so far, with $1,479,777,366 worldwide. The second-place film, Jurassic World Dominion, is about $470 million short of beating Tom Cruise’s planes.

Debuting at number two is the family movie Lyle Lyle Crocodile, with a disappointing $11.5 million from 4,350 theaters. It cost about $50 million to make, and it doesn’t have a huge amount of international appeal so it’s not good news for singing Shawn Mendes or whatever the hell Javier Bardem is doing there. Did someone tell him it was a secret Aronofsky project or something?

But hey, it still did better than Amsterdam, the newest film from well-known creep bastard David O. Russell. Despite a major all-star cast — Margot Robbie! Christian Bale! John David Washington! Taylor Swift! Rami Malek! — it barely scraped its way to number three with a paltry $6.5 million from 3,005 theaters. The budget was about $80 million. Ha. I would love to pretend that this dismal gross is the result of people saying no to Russell, but I think it’s more just lack of interest in the plot and the tepid reviews. Suffer.

At number nine is the horror sequel Terrifier 2 with $825,000 from 886 theaters. It was a good weekend for limited releases with strong reviews. Triangle of Sadness, this year’s Palme d’Or winner, brought in a hefty $210,074 from ten theaters, while Tár, Cate Blanchett’s critically acclaimed drama, made $160,000 from a mere four locations! There are certain areas where amazing reviews and killer word-of-mouth can still make an impact.

This coming week sees the release of Claire Denis’ romantic drama Stars at Noon, the historical drama Till, and the horror sequel Halloween Ends.

You can check out the rest of the weekend box office here.