Sandra Bullock’s ‘The Lost City’ Nabs Strong $31 Million Debut

Paramount’s hot streak continued as The Lost City topped the domestic box office with a rock-solid $31 million debut. With Sandra Bullock returning to the big screen for the first time since Ocean’s 8 (and the first time in a non-sequel since Our Brand Is Crisis in late 2015) and Channing Tatum in prime “I’m a lover, not a fighter” mode, the well-reviewed (76% and 6.4/10 on Rotten Tomatoes) rom-com adventure was seen as a test/great hope for the commercial theatrical viability of non-IP, star-driven, adult-skewing releases. In pre-streaming times, say around 2014, a Bullock/Tatum rom-com actioner would have been a surefire $40 million debut. In 2022, amid audiences becoming more acclimated to streaming and with Covid concerns keeping older/adult moviegoers out of theaters, a $31 million debut qualifies as a near-miracle.

While, as Sandra Bullock’s Prince of Egypt character once sang, hope is frail, it is also (sing it with me now) hard to kill. It helps that The Lost City, which received an indecisive B+ from Cinemascore, contained four of the five “required items” for a viable “just a movie” release in pre-Covid times. It featured all-star cast (including Daniel Radcliffe as the baddie and Brad Pitt in a much-advertised cameo), an easy elevator pitch (a romance novelist gets kidnapped, and her cover model races to the rescue), decent reviews and the promise of cinematic escapism. The Nee brothers aren’t marquee directors, but sometimes close enough is good enough. Moreover, Bullock has been a consistently bankable movie star for 25 years, from While You Were Sleeping in 1995 to Ocean’s 8 in 2018.

Even just from 2009 through 2015 (as we obsessed upon the death of the butts-in-theaters movie star), she racked up a slew of big opening weekends (from $33 million for The Proposal to $55 million for Gravity to $115 million for Minions) in a slew of mostly non-franchise and/or non-IP flicks (The Blind Side, The Heat, etc.). Like DiCaprio and Denzel Washington, Bullock has mostly stayed out of existing IP and thus continued to be defined by “Sandra Bullock – actress and movie star” as opposed to a given marquee character. She has also remained well-liked on all sides of the political isle/culture wars and vanishes from public view when she’s not promoting a project. Thus, her on-screen appearances remain genuine events amid an “every star is just a tweet away” social media era.

Also, as noted yesterday, Bullock’s mainstream crowd-pleasers tend to be leggy as hell. Gravity and The Proposal earned five times their respective openings, while Ocean’s 8 earned 3.5x its $40 million debut, The Heat quadrupled its $39 million launch and The Blind Side earned 7.7x a $33 million debut in late 2009. That’s not even counting the Christmas season releases like Miss Congeniality and Two Weeks’ Notice or the “way back when” word-of-mouth monsters like Speed ($121 million from a $14 million debut in 1994) or While You Were Sleeping ($81 million/$9 million in 1995). Moreover, it’s not like the next handful of wide releases (Morbius, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore and Ambulance) are chasing the same demographics. This one could play well into summer and past the $100 million mark.

Paramount has been on a mini-roll of late, pulling good grosses for Scream ($82 million from a $33 million Fri-Mon debut) and Jackass Forever ($58 million/$22 million). The Lost City is the kind of star-driven high-concept flick that used to be Hollywood’s bread and butter, and the Viacom studio suffered worst of all when the bottom fell out on that sub-genre over the last six years. If they go four for four (including Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in two weeks), I’ll start being optimistic about Top Gun: Maverick this Memorial Day. They should still play nice with Tom Cruise over Mission: Impossible 7’s theatrical window, as it’s not remotely worth damaging that key creative/commercial relationship. Otherwise, good on Channing Tatum (still a draw in a non-action role) and all hail Sandra Bullock! Love live the “movie-movie!”