Sydney Sweeney’s ‘Americana’ Wasn’t A Bomb, Rather A Niche Play: Understanding Indie Box Office Economics

Whenever a movie with a notable star gets a lower end wide release in just over 1,000 theaters, and said title doesn’t post a big result, it’s easy to write that it’s a bomb.

Read, we once declared that NEON’s Matthew McConaughey Beach Bum was the star’s lowest opening for a wide release at $1.76M ($1,6K per theater); that movie playing at 1,100 venues back in May 2019. At the time, NEON was upset, making a point that the movie was a niche play, and the only reason why the pic was playing slightly north of 1,000 locations is because the opportunity arose to book Beach Bum in more theaters. Why fault the distributor for going the extra mile in booking the title, and thus throw a pie in the film’s face?

This brings us to the Sydney Sweeney starring, originally Bron financed Tony Tost written-directed western, Americana, which the media has condemned as a flat-out bomb in its $500K opening at 1,100 theaters, particularly in the wake of the Euphoria star’s controversial American Eagle jeans campaign.

However, calling Americana a bomb is a misnomer in indie film economic terms for at the end of the day, the movie is expected to be profitable for Lionsgate on a small level under their Lionsgate Premiere Releasing label.

Sit down, close the door, take a seat, and we’ll explain.

First of all, Americana was never designated as a fire-breathing wide theatrical release with a double-digit marketing campaign ala say Jenna Ortega’s A24 title Death of a Unicorn (which at a $15M production cost underperformed for the Wednesday star at a $5.7M opening in 3,000-plus screens, ending at $12.8M domestic). Lionsgate rescued Americana a year after the movie’s world premiere to great reviews at 2023 SXSW (100% but then declining to recently 68% on Rotten Tomatoes at time of release), the movie’s financier Bron Studios going bankrupt in summer 2023. Lionsgate put Americana under its Lionsgate Premiere Releasing label. That’s a label that the studio holds for its arthouse or genre titles with a very low, concentrated P&A spend (i.e. SISU, FALL, Silent Night). The 1,000 theater break is, of course, there to push the title through its downstream windows. Americana, which also stars Paul Walter Hauser and pop singer Halsey, follows local outsiders and outcasts in a small South Dakota town whose lives violently intertwine after a rare artifact falls onto the black market. The LGPR arm is structured as a profitable part of Lionsgate library with 95% of its releases being in the black.

In the post-Covid marketplace (and this was even true pre-pandemic), the saying that gets thrown out a lot by executives, including newly appointed Paramount President Jeff Shell at the new conglom’s recent presser is that ‘there’s no one size that fits all’ distribution approach for movies.

The economics on Americana goes as follows: Lionsgate picked up global for $3M, 60% of that backed by foreign pre-sales. The theatrical and PVOD marketing spend combined is under $3M (mostly digital and in-theater trailers). The expectation is for a final domestic take of $1.5M. Americana is on a 30-day exclusive theatrical window instead of 17-days. The PVOD release sked is very similar to theatrical with distributors strategically finding the right time to go digital. Americana will stream through Lionsgate’s deal with Starz in its Pay One window. Sources say that the label expects Americana to be in the black at the end of all of its windows.

Here’s the current reality on several star-driven independently financed movies being assembled by the agencies: They’re going unsold. Many titles financially are already in deficit before even seeing a theatrical release. I.E. Ron Howard’s Eden cost a net of $50M, and there’s no way that Vertical paid a premium on that to release it. On Friday we told you that the Matthew McConaughey crime drama, The Rivals of Amziah King, which received a standing ovation at SXSW earlier this year, was getting a domestic release by its financier Black Bear after not finding the right buyer. For a movie such as Americanawhich cost Bron Studios $9M, to get a theatrical release, praise God. Why so much unsold product? The acquisitions market remains in a funk as streamer’s ratchet down their wants, and motion picture distributors evaluate whether the investment in a movie justifies their energy.

While we’re not ones to wave the flag for single digit openings at the box office, such tickets sales for smaller distributors such as NEON can be internal wins even though publicly facing, the box office may seem like no big deal. Read, their release last year of the Sweeney starring and produced nun horror movie Immaculate opened to $5.3M in fourth place and legged out to $15.6M, was a win for NEON. The movie was strictly a P&A deal with a mid-single digit P&A spend. Black Bear carried the under $10M production cost.

When it came to Lionsgate buying Americana and giving it a theatrical chance, it was with the intention of being in future business with Poker Face showrunner Tony Tost, who made his feature directorial debut here, as well as Sweeney, who remains a promising star. Mission accomplished for Lionsgate as they have the highly anticipated The Housemaid thriller at Christmas, which the actress is not only starring, but executive producing. The Housemaid is by far the bigger play for Lionsgate, and that will be the litmus test of Sweeney as a potential marquee star post the $220M-plus surprise sleeper Anyone But You versus Americana, which was a limited play.

For the motion picture industry overall, these indie movies from burgeoning filmmakers, which often have their biggest days at a film festival versus a coast-to-coast big screen release; even if their ticket sales come up as lackluster, it’s not big whoop: Such titles set the table for a director’s future, more grandeur endeavors.

Lest we forget that before Quentin Tarantino was the mammoth multi-Oscar winner that he is, Reservoir Dogs opened to $147K and ended its domestic run at $2.8M domestic back in 1992.