Sometimes casting one of the world’s biggest pop stars, in this case Harry Styles, can help a movie find an audience. Other times you can cast another one, like Taylor Swift, and it’s no help at all.
Don’t Worry Darling, the year’s most gossiped-about movie, topped the Australian box office last weekend. Director Olivia Wilde’s thriller, which had Florence Pugh and Styles star as a couple whose dream existence in a carefully curated 1950s-style community turns into a nightmare, took $2.1 million.
Florence Pugh and Harry Styles in Don’t Worry Darling. Credit:Warner Bros
Despite mostly negative reviews, this Hollywood movie that reputedly cost $US35 million to make looks like it’s becoming a modest hit. The film has worldwide takings of $US69 million ($110 million) so far.
And while Pugh is the undoubted star – her character reacts against the control of a charismatic corporate leader played by Chris Pine – much of this success can also be attributed to Styles.
All the weeks of tabloid controversies that surrounded the movie, including questions over why Styles replaced Shia LaBeouf, his relationship with Wilde, her relationship with Pugh, whether Pugh wanted to promote the movie and whether Styles spat on Pine at Venice Film Festival – all either downplayed or denied – generated awareness that it was on the way.
But there was one overriding factor that that helped sell enough tickets for Don’t Worry Darling to come out on top, just as it did in North America.
“I’ve got a few generations of female movie-goers in my house – from my 13-year-old daughter to my 49-year-old wife – and they are unanimous that Harry Styles was the primary reason for watching that film,” the chief executive of Palace Cinemas, Benjamin Zeccola, says.
Ticket presales indicated the movie would open strongly despite competing against two new releases – droll period drama Amsterdam and Australian comedy Wog Boys Forever – as well as continuing school holiday business for animated comedy DC League of Super-Pets and horror movie Smile.
The chief executive of Hoyts cinemas, Damian Keogh, points to the buzz on social media about Styles playing the role – his first substantial movie role since debuting in Dunkirk – and his on-screen relationship with Pugh.
Harry Styles in Don’t Worry Darling.Credit:Warner Bros
He watched Don’t Worry Darling on Saturday night and found Styles fans were out in big numbers, reckoning that he was among only 10 per cent of the audience who was male.
“It was younger [women] mainly,” Keogh says. “I lifted the average age and the gender balance.”
While he originally expected the movie to take about $6 million, he now thinks it could take $8 million to $10 million, even if Styles showed he still has a way to go to be a compelling actor.
“I think Florence Pugh was outstanding,” Keogh says. “But I wonder whether she was outstanding on the basis that Harry didn’t steal too many scenes off her.”
In Amsterdam, Swift more than capably plays a grieving daughter who believes her politician father was murdered. But the box office indicates precious few of her fans turned up in cinemas.
Despite a long list of stars that included Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Chris Rock, Rami Malek, Anya Taylor-Joy, Robert De Niro and Mike Myers, the movie took just $980,000 in this country even though it screened in more cinemas than Don’t Worry Darling (283 compared to 278).
That was in line with Amsterdam’s dismal opening in North America, which Box Office Mojo has called “a bona fide disaster”.
“The $US80 million budgeted period piece from writer-director David O. Russell will go down as one of the year’s biggest flops as it opened to a mere $US6.5 million from 3005 theatres,” it said.
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