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By Alex Kirschenbaum
Contributing Entertainment Writer
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Sydney Sweeney's quest for bona fide movie stardom slipped mightily for much of 2025.
After scene-stealing turns on HBO's Euphoria and The White Lotus made her a borderline-household name, Sweeney struck out for the silver screen in earnest. TV has emerged as the watercooler narrative medium of our era, but there's still a special allure to the prospect of being projected onto a 40-foot screen.
Sweeney made her first major bid by co-starring with another ascendant young A-list hopeful, Glen Powell, in Anyone But You, an old-school, R-rated romantic comedy that took a page from the book of '90s classics like Clueless and 10 Things I Hate About You, adapting a beloved William Shakespeare play. In this case, that play was Much Ado About Nothing.
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In the film, a series of misunderstandings sour a meet-cute between investment banker Ben (Powell) and law student Bea (Sweeney). By the time they run into each other again at a destination wedding in Australia a half-year later, they've become adversaries. Eventually, to make their exes jealous, they pretend to be dating — but, invariably, that gets complicated when their feelings for each other resurface. It's a cute trifle, no great shakes, and not at the level of the best '90s romantic comedies. But Powell and Sweeney's chemistry sizzles.
A muted $6 million opening in December 2023 had pundits bemoaning the continued death of the theatrical romantic comedy. But a funny thing happened to the way to failure: Anyone But You had legs. It became a certifiable sleeper success, going on to earn $88.3 million domestically and $132 million abroad for an exciting $220.3 million sum.
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The stocks of both Powell and Sweeney were suddenly on the rise. The next year, Sweeney responded with two more theatrical flicks: the Neon-produced nun chiller Immaculate and Sony's Spider-Man spinoff, Madame Web. Immaculate, a deliciously creepy excursion, performed fine relative to its budget and expectations. It may not have necessarily helped Sweeney's star, but it didn't hurt it, either.
Horror generally relies on concept to sell a project, but the fact that the movie grossed $15.7 million stateside off a reported $6 million budget, while collecting $19.2 million internationally ($34.9 million total) for an indie studio, didn't hurt Sweeney's CV.
Madame Web was an absolute critical and box office disaster. As a $100 million-budgeted Sony attempt to kick off a new comic book franchise, Madame Web needed to at least double its cost at the worldwide box office. Instead, the movie merely matched it.
In this case, the haters were on to something. It's a laughably atrocious flick, clearly the victim of too much studio interference. But Sweeney is not the star, so its failure didn't hurt her planned rise. She played a supporting role behind Dakota Johnson, performing as the titular psychic superhero in a hilariously jumbled mess of a movie. Still, for Sweeney, the film was a net neutral. Dakota Johnson was the face above the title and main presence on the posters.
But 2025 proved to be rough sledding for the 28-year-old starlet.
Sydney Sweeney's 2025 Box Office Struggles
She was the marquee name for Lionsgate's Coen brothers-channeling South Dakota crime drama Americana. Though the film technically debuted in 2023 at the South by Southwest film festival, it only hit theaters two years later. As a movie, Americana is solid, packed with memorably strange characters and action setpieces — at least until its violent conclusion, when various doomed and desperate people with conflicting goals collide in a frustratingly uneven finale.
It was a valiant effort by Sweeney, playing against type as a precocious waitress with a stutter, but the movie tanked when it was released on Aug. 15, reportedly grossing under $500K against a $9 million budget.
Ron Howard's star-studded period survival drama Eden arrived on screens a week later, to a similarly icy reception. Sweeney plays a pregnant German woman who moves with her family to escape encroaching fascism in 1931, setting up a new life in the remote Galapagos Islands — where they quickly butt heads with their fellow adventurers (and those adventurers' pets). Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, and Ana de Armas comprise the other big names.
Eden, a soapy ensemble thriller, was a tactical play by Sweeney to align herself with one of the biggest and most beloved directors in Hollywood history in the Oscar-winning Howard.
The film's release was also delayed a bit, having made its debut at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. The $55 million thriller was ultimately released independently, by Vertical Entertainment, and brought in just $2.5 million at the box office. Arriving so quickly on the heels of Americana, and with Sweeney and de Armas (in the showier role, as a duplicitous, hedonistic Baroness who instantly gets on everyone's nerves) positioned as the two big rising names (Kirby's role is smaller), fault was found with them more so than the others.
Although Sweeney has thrived on TV as biting, bullying Gen Z cynics, it’s encouraging to see her stretch herself with these two meager, muted turns.
Sweeney's next theatrical flick looked like another savvy move on her journey to stardom — transforming her body to play an historic fighter, trailblazing boxer Christy Salters, while hopefully positioning herself for Academy Awards consideration. Instead, the $15 million Christy earned a miserable $2 million at the worldwide box office following its Nov. 7 theatrical debut, while receiving mixed notices from critics.
By this point, the bloom was fully off the rose, and it looked like Sweeney's star might be in freefall.
Now, it appears she has rebounded. Collaborating with a longtime hitmaker in director Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, A Simple Favor) and an already-established star in Amanda Seyfried (the Mamma Mia! series, Mean Girls), Sweeney leads the way as the title character in The Housemaid, an old-school erotic thriller that's already catching on with audiences.
Per Pamela McClintock of The Hollywood Reporter, the R-rated sleeper has already made $75.9 million stateside and $133.2 million total worldwide.
Following a solid $19 million debut box office take from Dec. 19-21, the Lionsgate-produced thriller has enjoyed stunningly strong holds across the past two weeks. The Housemaid eased just 19.5 percent to a $15.3 million second weekend, Dec. 26-28, and fell by a scant 1.4 percent to a quality $15.1 million take this past weekend.
It's likely that, with most audiences now back in the rhythm of their post-holiday lives, the movie will slip more than 1.4 percent in its fourth weekend.
Still, The Housemaid is on track to be Sweeney's first $100 million-plus domestic hit at the box office. She's been trying to stretch herself as a performer, and that's to her credit. But now, she has two legitimate theatrical success stories to her name in three years. The struggles of the other 2025 films have likely evaporated in the estimation of the town.
Back in the day in Hollywood, box office hits were predicated on star power and concept. Now, the industry has become overreliant on recycling franchises. If the system has finally, mercifully generated another fresh Gen-Z star alongside Timothee Chalamet — especially one who's been trying out so many versatile, non-IP products — that's potentially huge news for the future of the industry.
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