Box Office Bombshell: A Big Bold Beautiful Journey Craters on Opening Weekend

Remember when being a movie star meant your name alone could sell tickets? That era is hanging on by a thread, and this weekend might be the cleanest example yet. Outside of Tom Cruise, the word bankable basically does not exist anymore.

Big stars, tiny turnout

Sony put out A Big Bold Beautiful Journey with two A-listers up front: Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell. On paper, that should at least get you a respectable opening. In reality, per Deadline, the $50 million movie is stumbling toward about $3 million for the weekend. That is rough, no matter how you slice it.

Before anyone writes obituaries for either star: relax. Robbie and Farrell have both taken hits before and bounced back. Robbie had back-to-back flops with Amsterdam and Babylon (which, to be fair, has morphed into a cult favorite), and then turned around and helped launch Barbie into the stratosphere. Farrell has never really been framed as a box office magnet anyway; he tends to chase weirder, smaller projects, and when he lands in the right lane (The Penguin, for example), people absolutely show up.

The problem here seems straightforward: the movie is not connecting. Reviews, including ours, have been poor. If it had landed better, the numbers probably would have followed. Instead, it is a big swing that did not clear the fence.

Sony is having a year

This does not help Sony, which is already slogging through a shaky 2025 at the box office. Their run of cheap legacy sequels is not doing them any favors. I Know What You Did Last Summer was atrocious, Karate Kid Legends was weak, and while I will go to bat for some of their originals, the underrated Caught Stealing included, audiences are not showing up for them either. Outside of Danny Boyle's 28 Years Later and the anime pipeline via Crunchyroll, it has been a tough calendar for the studio.

Meanwhile, in anime land...

Last weekend's champ, Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle, is coming back to earth fast. After that historic opening, the follow-up frame looks extremely front-loaded, with an eye-popping drop of around 78% to roughly $15 million. That sounds bad, but the bigger picture is still huge: it is on track to cross $100 million and finish as the highest-grossing anime movie ever in North America.

One more wrinkle: Jordan Peele's Him is doing basically what it was expected to do, opening around $15 million. So you have a front-loaded juggernaut and a new Peele movie essentially neck and neck for the weekend.

• A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (Sony): ~$3 million opening on a ~$50 million budget (per Deadline)
• Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle: ~78% drop to around $15 million; still headed past $100 million domestic and likely the top-grossing anime in North America
• Him (Jordan Peele): opening around $15 million, right in line with expectations

So... who is actually bankable now?

Bankability is not dead, but it is basically on the endangered species list. Cruise is the obvious survivor. After that, it gets complicated fast and depends way more on the package (genre, reviews, IP, timing) than the face on the poster.

Who do you think still qualifies as a real movie star in 2025? Drop your picks and make your case.