Sandra Bullock’s New Movie Has Broken An Important Record
Sandra Bullock is no stranger to setting all-time records, and the star is doing it yet again with this weekend. Here's what's happening
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Sandra Bullock’s The Lost City looks set to be finding its footing in the box office. News is coming in that the film has broken an important record for Paramount after its opening weekend. According to Deadline, The Lost City has set a post-pandemic record for a female-driven comedy in the box office on opening weekend.
The film has soared to an opening weekend box office return of $31 million. This not only breaks the record for a female-driven comedy in post-pandemic theatres, but it also ranks second for Paramount for a pandemic/post-pandemic opening weekend. The Lost City sits second behind A Quiet Place II which debuted at $47.5 million.
The Lost City was released in theaters on March 25th. The movie sees Sandra Bullock as romance adventure novelist Loretta Sage and Channing Tatum as the book series cover model Dash. Sage is kidnapped by a mad billionaire played by Daniel Radcliffe, seemingly under the impression that Bullock’s novelist can help him locate a real-life treasure in the jungle. Tatum’s delusional Dash sets off to rescue the stranded novelist. To get a sense of all the fun and games in The Lost City, you can see Sandra Bullock in the trailer below.
Sandra Bullock’s The Lost City looks inspired by the likes of Romancing the Stone and The Jewel of the Nile, two films with a romantic adventure novelist who whisks off on a real-life adventure. Both those 1980s classics and The Lost City also feature a roguish adventurer, Michael Douglas in the former and Brad Pitt in this newer take. Paramount will find it encouraging that this formula still proves a hit at the box office, and will be doubly encouraged by its post-pandemic record-breaking. In their aforementioned article Deadline drew an enlightening example between The Lost City and two pre-pandemic comedy releases that also starred Sandra Bullock. Those were The Heat and The Proposal, which like The Lost City had opening weekends in the mid to high $30 million range.
Sandra Bullock’s box office result is an example of the encouraging performance of movie theatres in this post-pandemic world. The series of cinema closures throughout the pandemic and the surge in streaming in this time has many feeling that movie theatres were in jeopardy. However, box office hits such as Spiderman: No Way Home and The Batman have shown that cinemas are having a phoenix moment, rising out of the ashes.
For Paramount as well, it is more than promising. Recently the studio revealed that their movies won’t be readily available from a variety of sources once their theatre runs have come to an end. Instead, from 2024 onwards, Paramount movies will exclusively be available on the streaming service Paramount Plus once they have left theatres. The fact that The Lost City is having a strong box-office opening for the studio hints at a possible future where the film will help draw audiences to the streaming platform as well. Sandra Bullock isn’t the only one proving a hit for Paramount this week either, as the Master Chief himself is also proving a hit for the studio in the long-awaited Halo TV Series, which made a record-breaking bow on Paramount Plus. Both that and The Lost City are in the infancy of their respective releases, and it will be intriguing to see how they both perform as the weeks roll on.
