Huge failure for Sydney Sweeney with her boxing film Christy, KO upon its release

ChristyDavid Michôd’s film with Sydney Sweeney had one of the worst domestic starts in history and should have difficulty recovering.

After being revealed in The Handmaid’s Talethen exploded in Euphoria and turned to Hollywood, notably with the romantic comedy Everything except youSydney Sweeney has reached a milestone in her career: the biopic, which required a transformation and intense physical training from the actress to slip into the skin and gloves of boxer Christy Martin.

Beyond the feats of arms of the former champion in the ring, Christyby director David Michôd, tells the story of how she became one of the pioneers of her discipline and helped to highlight women’s sport, while battling an abusive relationship with her husband and coach. An inspiring story on paper, but one that the North American public was clearly in no hurry to see in theaters. The film was released on November 7 at home and has already received a knockout.

CHRISTY K.O

For its home opening weekend, Christy earned $1.3 million, placing 11th in the weekly rankings behind Tron: Ares et Springsteenwhich are respectively in their 5th and 3rd week of operation. However, the score would not be as catastrophic if Christy was not released on 2011 screens, which equates to approximately $648 in revenue per theater. We don’t yet know its production budget, which we don’t think is very impressive, but it remains a disaster as it stands.

For comparison, the historical film Nuremberg starring Rami Malek, Russell Crowe and Michael Shannon was only released to 1,800 copies, but grossed more than $4.4 million in three days. Likewise for Die My Lovethe drama starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson: $2.8 million from just over 1,980 copies for its North American launch.

Worse still, according to the Box-Office Mojo rankings, Christy is the 12th worst start in history in the United States for a film distributed in more than 2,000 theaters. It is in fact placed just behind the horror film The Empty Man (arrived in the middle of a pandemic), and the release of The Nightmare Before Christmas at the end of 2020, again during the global health crisis. The ranking also includes the releases of the first Toy Story and the first Saw, but also the sinking Playmobile, the movie et Scooby (also broken down by Covid).

Beyond the still lively controversies over the American Eagle jeans campaign, Christy’s failure is above all another example which points towards a collapse of the star system (who would like the headliner to take precedence over the film and be its main selling point). There are many examples in recent years: The Fall Guy et Ryan Gosling post-Barbie, Babylon with Margot Robbie, Furious with Anya Talor-Joy, Horizon with Kevin Costner, or more recently Smashing Machine with Dwayne Johnson (also for an author’s sports biopic).

This is also Sydney Sweeney’s third commercial failure this year after Eden by Ron Howard (where she shares the bill with Jude Law, Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby and Daniel Brühl) and Americanareleased directly on VOD in France. Without even mentioning the crash of Madame Web in 2024… Finally, it is also a hard blow for the company Black Bear Pictures, which is distributing a film on American territory for the first time.

In France, Christy will not be released until March 4, 2026, but competition will a priori be strong between The Bride! Maggie Gyllenhaal et Die My Love.