Wall Street Strip Club Movie Fails to Topple ‘It’ Sequel

(Bloomberg) -- The new Jennifer Lopez film “Hustlers,” about strippers who fleece their wealthy Wall Street clients, set records for the singer-actor-entertainer and the studio that backed the new movie in its U.S. weekend debut.

• “Hustlers” collected $33.2 million in sales from North American theaters, researcher Comscore Inc. said Monday. That was a new high for STX Entertainment and marked the biggest debut for Lopez in a live-action film, though she’s played characters in animated features that opened with higher revenue. As expected, the Warner Bros. feature “It Chapter Two” held on to the top spot for the weekend.

Key Insights

• Based on a 2015 New York magazine article, “Hustlers” follows a group of strippers struggling through the 2008 financial crisis. To make up for falling attendance, they begin to drug the Wall Street men who patronize their club and run up thousands of dollars of charges on their credit cards. Analysts were forecasting sales of $27 million to $32 million -- enough to beat STX’s previous best debut: $23.8 million for “Bad Moms” in 2016.

• Also opening in wide release was “The Goldfinch,” based on Donna Tartt’s 2014 Pulitzer prize winning novel. The Warner Bros. film flopped badly, taking in $2.7 million, compared with estimates of $7 million to $8 million. It received positive reviews from just 25% of critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
• Neither movie was expected to move the needle much for the overall box office, where sales are running below a year ago. Next week, however, three bigger films debut: Walt Disney Co.’s “Ad Astra” starring Brad Pitt, “Rambo: Last Blood” from Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., and “Downton Abbey,” a revival of the TV series about British aristocrats and their servants. It’s from Comcast Corp.’s Focus Features.

Get More

• See the weekend release schedule.
• See Box Office Pro’s long-range forecast.

To contact the reporter on this story: Hailey Waller in New York at hwaller@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Ludden at jludden@bloomberg.net, Rob Golum

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