We probably don’t need to tell you that Sydney Sweeney has been in the news a lot lately.
Sydney’s American Eagle ad campaign has become an unexpected source of controversy thanks to a genes/jeans pun that some critics find racially insensitive.
And now, the controversy might be negatively impacting Sweeney’s career, as her new movie was a colossal flop at the box office.
‘Americana’ fails to reach $1 million mark in opening weekend
The movie, a Western crime thriller titled Americana, opened on 1,000 screens over the weekend.
But despite the presence of Sydney and some high-profile co-stars, including singer Halsey and Golden Globe winner Paul Walter Hauser, the film finished in 16th place at the box office with just $840,000 in earnings (per The Hollywood Reporter).
You don’t need to be an industry analyst to know that that’s a very poor showing.
One would think that the presence of the year’s most in-demand actress would, on its own, be enough to get this flick to the $1 million mark.
So is the failure of Americana an indication that Sydney’s popularity is on the decline? Well — probably not.
After all, the film, which was completed in 2023 had a rocky road to the box office, and it was released in the midst of a still-crowded summer movie season.
While the THR report describes Americana as a “bomb,” it also notes that the movie’s theatrical release was “part of a multi-platform strategy, including premium VOD, and that its box office performance is in no way a disappointment, financial or otherwise.”
And according to Deadline, the film is still “expected to be profitable for Lionsgate on a small level under their Lionsgate Premiere Releasing label.”
Reports of Sydney’s decline have been greatly exaggerated
In other words, Sydney’s handlers probably aren’t freaking out over the fact that the little indie drama she filmed almost three years ago isn’t exactly setting the world on fire.
Sydney hasn’t exactly been pounding the pavement to promote Americana, but she attended a couple of premiere events, and she gave the film a warm shout-out on her Instagram page:
“A few years ago I filmed this little movie with some friends and now you get to meet penny jo,” she captioned a post with stills from the movie.
In the movie, Sydney plays a waitress and aspiring country singer who gets caught up in some drama surrounding a rare Native American artifact.
Sounds like an interesting premise! But Americana probably won’t be in theaters for very long, so you may have to wait until it hits streaming.