Hey yall! Long time lurker, first time poster.
I’m based in nyc and try to get my 4 A-List movies in a week. I’m also a massive drag race fan, so I’m really excited for Stop! that! Train!
I was never expecting the RuPaul slapstick farce comedy to do well. Comparing it to Naked Gun 2025, that had recognizable IP, 2 Stars most people have heard of, and had great reviews, it made around 100 million. So it my head, that’s the ceiling for this kind of movie right now.
The trailers came out, and although it’s what I wanted it to be, I wasn’t sure if it was going to loop in folks from outside the Drag Race fan base.
But I’ve noticed that it’s already selling out it’s Thursday and Friday screens 3 weeks out in NYC and LA. I feel like this can be rare for most non blockbusters. I love boosters at AMC Lincoln Square was pretty empty for the weeks leading up, but filled up more day of when I saw it this weekend.
Could this get a 15m+ opening weekend? On its very very best day, the presales have me thinking it could reach a 30m domestic total. I know LA and NYC the target demographics, but I’m constantly on that dang AMC app in NYC and this already feels like an anomaly. I also wonder if it feels like an anomaly because we never get big, queer films quite like this. Maybe Pride Month could present itself as a niche release window for Queer movies (despite that sounding so obvious)
Would love anyone’s insight 🙂
by Brooklyngjm
16 Comments
I really think it’s because LA and NYC people are most likely to like drag race. I think it opens to maximum $5-6M depending on reviews. I’d love for it to do well tho (because of Sarah Michelle Gellar)
It’s NY and LA. You gotta look at the ordinary cities too. Personally I’m not seeing a whole lot of advance sales where I live.
Aren’t these two theaters always gonna be full, for most stuff?
I’m also looking forward to this, and absolutely love Sarah Michelle Gellar… so I can safely say that this is not going to do well, unfortunately.
I’m at least hoping that it will be fun!
I think $100 million is too high of a ceiling since there’s only a few international markets I can see this having any kind of impact in! This movie seems like the type to have a small but motivated audience so its initial showings in LA/NYC almost selling out make sense but I’m guessing it will drop off quickly after that. I would guess the budget accounted for that so hopefully it can be fun and be a small financial success.
I love drag race but this looks just like a mid acting challenge on a random season. It wont do well..
RuPaul has a sizable fan base and I do think we’re living in times where slapstick comedy is a sought-after relief from real world struggles. Hopefully it’ll be good and word-of-mouth will give it strong, lasting numbers.
No more than $25M domestic
Don’t ever look to those two AMC’s as an indicator for performance. The theater culture is extremely strong in those theaters specifically.
I went to AMC the Grove on Friday for a small indie movie that had no promo and the theater was packed. That only happens in LA and NYC
https://preview.redd.it/5sxg99esr63h1.png?width=1854&format=png&auto=webp&s=90216c5c8c4ffd0aa7778cd52958884a33fa5478
I will certainly be there myself but this is the 6:30pm at a huge Denver-metro area theater at the earliest date available. Several other Denver-area theaters don’t have a single seat sold…and Denver’s known for being a pretty Queer city.
NY and LA are definitely anomalies at this point, I’m afraid. I hope it does amazing and exceeds all expectations but I’m not certain at this point it’ll be a huge hit.
Shit might do maybe 1m-2m Globally
Movies do promo, I remember boosters gave codes through fandango, college showings. I remember back when I had T-Mobile years ago free tickets were pretty frequent.
I’m not knocking demand or its audience support (I’ll be seeing it) but it’ll be hard to estimate with this. I do think it’s fun this didn’t just hit streaming.
Damn be you live in nyc and still got time to see four movies a week? You’re livin my dream
Outside of NYC and LA, we also have to remember that this movie is from a smaller/indie distributor unlike The Naked Gun and Scary Movie. So I kinda doubt it’s going to be in a lot of theaters to even hit these numbers. I hate to be a downer but I live down south, so I will be pleasantly surprised if a theater near me is playing this rather than giving all the screens away to something else.
I think it’ll do better than Bros but not by much.
As much as I’d like that to happen, I think this may just be a big progressive city thing.
That said, I’m all in and it looks like a lot of fun. If it comes to my podunk Arizona town, I’m definitely going.