Celine Song’s hit Materialists has raced to $31m in North America through A24 and an early $10m internationally via Sony thanks to calibrated campaigns that have tapped into an underserved audience’s enduring love for the rom-com genre.
Two years after A24 released Song’s first feature, the Oscar-nominated romance Past Lives, which opened in June 2023 and finished on $11.3m in North America, the company reunited on the filmmaker’s latest love triangle story with producers Killer Films and 2AM.
The goal was to appeal not just to rom-com fans, but audiences who were interested in the return of an acclaimed filmmaker with a predilection for nuanced storytelling.
A starry cast with strong chemistry helped. Unlike Song’s debut, which featured experienced, albeit lesser-known, actors anchored by a breakout performance from Greta Lee, Materialists boasts household names in Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans.
But before the A-list cast could be deployed in service to the story of an elite New York matchmaker attracted to a wealthy man and her less well-off ex, A24 wanted to spark conversation. It wanted to capture the subtleties of a story that is sexy, funny, and bracingly honest about the financial realities of dating in the modern age.
Three trailers
Ahead of the June 13 release, A24 released three distinct trailers to capture the tonal intricacies of the film. The first on March 18 introduced the leads and made it clear who was who. For the second trailer on May 8, the emphasis was on nostalgia and recalled the 1990s, a halcyon age of rom-coms that produced celebrated titles like Pretty Woman, Notting Hill, and You’ve Got Mail. The third trailer drop on May 22 was a sharp, provocative homage to the old Mastercard commercials and played with the idea of a person’s value in the dating economy.
On June 6, A24 launched the menofny.com website to gather intelligence on the attributes of anonymous single men from New York and list their likes and dislikes in potential partners. The resulting “romantic value” scores fed into a live ticker at the New York Stock Exchange and appeared on mobile billboards throughout the city.
The fact that the three leads clearly enjoyed each other’s company was a bonus. Besides print and online interviews, they participated gamely in question-and-answer formats like Vogue’s Off The Cuff and LADbible Entertainment’s Would You Rather?, and Hot Ones, an increasingly popular promotional staging post that requires subjects to discuss their careers while eating chicken wings dipped in progressively hotter sauces. Poster art featured all three leads together and as individuals.
The opening weekend proved a solid counterpoint to How To Train Your Dragon and holdovers like Lilo & Stitch, Ballerina and Karate Kid: Legends and exit polls revealed the film was most popular with under-35 females. New York and Los Angeles were predictably the major markets for the film, but there have been big turnouts in other key metropolitan areas like Boston, Dallas, Miami, and Phoenix.
Materialists opened on $11.3m from 2,844 locations to deliver A24’s third-highest debut after Civil War on $25.5m in April 2024 and Hereditary on $13.6m in June 2018. Three weeks later it has demonstrated solid legs with holds on about 49% and heads into its fourth weekend over the Fourth Of July holiday in eighth place and will play in fewer than 1,931 sites.
International roll-out
At the same time, the film is in the early stages of international release. It had already earned $10m through Tuesday from around 22% of the international footprint, buoyed by $3.7m from Australia, and a raft of mostly Eastern European territories. Materialists opens in France and Belgium this week, and Latin America at the end of July. Song’s film opens in the UK on August 15, a time when few female-oriented films are opening in the territory.
A24 has exchanged information and some materials with Sony’s international distribution team – as the partners have done on Sally Hawkins horror Bring Her Back, which stands at $19.3m after five weekends in North America and opens in the UK on July 26.
Sony had enjoyed recent success with romance films, having released the broadly entertaining rom-com Anyone But You in late 2023 onwards, and the serious, issue-driven It Ends With Us in autumn 2024.
On Materialists, the decision was made to lean into the film’s fun and frothy side. The three leads have been unable to travel due to commitments, so Sony used behind-the-scenes footage of the stars discussing their favourite romantic films in its materials. It established characters through a one-sheet and single international trailer that focus more on the dating process itself.
Among Sony’s tricks best tricks so far have been a series of “girls night out” advance screenings in Australia and Netherlands; women-only events promoted in cinema lobbies, on social platforms, and media portals.
While US box office is a vital component of a film’s overall success, sources have said implicitly that it lacks the promotional resonance it once carried through into international markets. Screen understands that favourable reviews on film and culture websites and platforms tend to galvanise international audiences these days. A solid rating on Rotten Tomatoes counts for a lot, too (Materialists is currently at 88%). In that regard, North America and the international arena are in lockstep.