Looking back at “The Favourite,” Lanthimos’ last film never cracked the top 10 at the domestic box office during its run. Yet it had an even more impressive per-theater average, grossing $422,410 from just four theaters on its opening weekend, and over $1 million from just 34 theaters in its second weekend. Had it not been released amid a crowded Thanksgiving slate, it could have easily been top 10 material. Overall, “The Favourite” grossed $34.3 million at the domestic box office by the end of its run, and $95.9 million worldwide. If “Poor Things” performs similarly then, even with a larger budget of $35 million, it should break even and turn a modest profit.
“Poor Things” is still untested overseas, which is where “The Favourite” made two-thirds of its worldwide total. That film was a particularly big hit in the United Kingdom, since the story was about Britain’s 18th-century monarch Queen Anne and it starred two of the UK’s favorite daughters: Olivia Colman and Rachel Weisz. Its ticket sales in the land of tea and crumpets amounted to $21.8 million, more than a fifth of the global total.
Aside from being able to boast “from the director of ‘The Favourite'” in marketing, “Poor Things” also has Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo adding to the star power, and a handful of Oscar nominations could help give it good strong legs. It already has a stellar score of 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, as of this writing. We’ll know more about its fate over when the international rollout begins in January.
/Film’s Ben Pearson and Ryan Scott spoke more about this on today’s episode of the /Film Daily podcast, which you can listen to here:
They also touched on the opening weekend performance of “Wonka,” and look ahead to the prospects for this week’s “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.”
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