The Lost City is now set to have the third-biggest opening weekend of 2022 so far. The film, which was directed by brothers Aaron and Adam Nee and opened on March 25, 2022, is a romantic comedy adventure film in the vein of Romancing the Stone. It stars a glittering ensemble of A-listers including Sandra Bullock, Daniel Radcliffe, Brad Pitt, and Channing Tatum, who has been making a comeback in 2022 after stepping back from acting for several years.
The Lost City follows romance author Loretta Sage (Bullock), who has been experiencing writer's block. Eccentric billionaire Fairfax (Radcliffe) kidnaps her and takes her to South America, certain that her new book The Lost City of D is about a real place and that she can help him find it. The only person who can save her (or so he thinks), is Alan Caprison (Channing Tatum), a cover model who plays her intrepid lead character Dash McMahon.
Per THR, The Lost City is poised to have an incredibly strong opening weekend, even with the Academy Awards taking a substantial chunk of its Sunday audience away. The film is expected to land around $30 million in the box office by the end of the weekend, either tying with or just surpassing the successful meta slasher Scream, which came out in mid-January and became the first film to knock Spider-Man: No Way Home from its reign at #1 for every weekend since its release. If The Lost City beats Scream, which it could very well do by a narrow margin, it will be the third-best opening weekend of the year so far, right behind The Batman's mind-blowing $134 million and Uncharted's more reasonable $44 million.
The financial success of The Lost City this weekend has largely been driven by a demographic that hasn't been seen going to the movies very often in the pandemic era: women over 35. The box office boom of recent film successes like The Batman or Spider-Man: No Way Home has largely been driven by male viewers under 35. Most adult dramas have suffered at the box office, with the exception of the Oscar-nominated House of Gucci. However, about 60% of The Lost City ticket buyers were female and 47% were over the age of 35, making this the first film in quite some time to be a success off the back of drawing interest from both of those key demographics.
In addition to that, The Lost City is one of the first non-franchise films to get real traction in the time since theaters have reopened. This could be for many reasons, including a general sense of increasing safety going out in public. However, the star-studded cast and a premise that provides counterprogramming to the many superhero pictures bogging down the market will most likely help the film along the way.
Source: THR