“Bad Moms” has passed the $100 million benchmark at the domestic box office, Forbes reports. The film sees Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, and Kathryn Hahn playing three mothers who endeavor to stop judging themselves so harshly and to bring down the “perfect moms” — a clique led by Christina Applegate.
Factoring in foreign ticket sales, the R-rated female-centric comedy has grossed over $141 million on a budget of $20 million. Consider “Bad Moms” just the latest chapter in the history of female-led films crushing it at the box office, continuing to prove that there’s a market for movies about women.
Kunis addressed the unfair expectations placed on films with female protagonists in a recent interview on ABC News’ “Popcorn With Peter Travers.” She observed, “The hardest part about all of this is when a movie that is starring women does well, everyone goes, ‘Wow, that’s amazing.’ … But when it goes bad, then everyone goes, ‘We knew it. We knew this was going to happen.’ A male-driven film, it doesn’t matter, whether it’s good or bad, no one comments on it,” Kunis explained. “It’s just either good or bad. With a female-driven film, it’s females. ‘Well this female succeeded, or this female failed.’ It’s going to have to change one day.”
Forbes writes that the mission of “Bad Mom’s” distributor, STX Entertainment, is “to score big hits with mid-budget, star-driven studio programmers that had fallen out of fashion at the major studios. As such, after a rocky first year, this is more than just a hit. It’s a proof of concept. Moreover, it represents a clear example of the value of a ‘nothing like this in the marketplace’ multiplex offering.”
And now STX has scored a $100 million+ success story after launching less than a year ago. Forbes contextualizes the magnitude of this accomplishment: “It took Weinstein Company just under four years to score ‘Inglorious Basterds.’ Lionsgate was in existence for nine years before ‘Fahrenheit 9/11.’ Summit was around for a year before ‘Twilight’ put them on the map accordingly, but the likes of Relativity, FilmDistrict, CBS, Open Road, and A24 are either still waiting for that benchmark hit or came and went absent said milestone. “
We’re inclined to agree with Forbes’ assertion that “as more and more of these smaller distribution houses take on what used to be the studio programmer, we should be rooting for as many ‘Bad Moms’-ish breakouts as possible.”
A significant factor in the triumph of “Bad Mom’s” is its long-term success at the box office. The film hit theaters July 19, and while it didn’t open at #1, it’s still making waves at the box office. This long weekend “Bad Moms” grossed $6 million in the U.S., an increase of 7.6 percent from last weekend. As Forbes points out, the film had a $23.8 million opening weekend, so that means it “has earned a 4.36x weekend (and counting) multiplier,” making it “the leggiest wide release since Leonardo DiCaprio’s ‘The Revenant’ (and it will soon pass that one’s Oscar-boosted multiplier once it tops $112m).”
A sequel announcement seems imminent.
