Has Glen Powell’s Box Office Luck Run Out? New Release Teeters Toward a Second Straight Flop
Glen Powell’s How to Make a Killing stumbled out of the gate, posting a soft opening that clashes with its reported budget and puts the star on track for a second box office flop in recent months.
Glen Powell came into the weekend with a pitch-black comedy and walked out with a bruised opening. A24's How to Make a Killing landed with soft numbers that look rough next to its price tag, and the timing is awkward given Powell's last big swing at the box office.
Box office snapshot
Industry estimates put How to Make a Killing at $3.56 million from 1,625 theaters in its first weekend, good for sixth place. It trailed GOAT, Wuthering Heights, I Can Only Imagine 2, Crime 101, and Send Help. With an estimated $40 million budget, that launch puts the film on track for a tough run, and it arrives just months after Powell's The Running Man underperformed. That one opened November 14, 2025 and finished with about $69.3 million worldwide on a reported $110 million budget.
The movie itself
Powell stars as Becket Redfellow, a blue-collar lifer who was cut off by his ultra-rich family at birth and decides to climb back into the inheritance line the old-fashioned way: through murder. John Patton Ford wrote and directed, building a modern riff that nods to Robert Hamer's 1949 classic Kind Hearts and Coronets, which itself came from Roy Horniman's 1907 novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal. That lineage is a wild game of telephone across a century, and I respect the audacity.
The cast is stacked around Powell: Margaret Qualley, Jessica Henwick, Ed Harris, and Topher Grace all show up to play.
Critics vs. audiences
The reaction split is real. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film sits at 49% with critics, while audiences are far warmer at 77%. Over on Metacritic, the metascore is 52 from 34 reviews, with users giving it a 7.7. Translation: the crowd that finds it is having a better time than the critics reading the balance sheet.
Release rollout
- United States: Released February 20, 2026 by A24
- United Kingdom: March 13, 2026 via StudioCanal
- France: March 25, 2026
Bottom line: a sharp, nasty premise and a strong ensemble, but the early dollars are thin. If word of mouth keeps matching those audience scores, it has a shot at legs. If not, Powell's recent streak at the box office stays chilly.