Skip to main content

Things We Saw Today: Girls Trip Blows up the Box Office and Shows the Power of Diverse Female-Led Media

By Jul 24th, 2017, 6:47 pm

Recommended Videos

How many times will movies with strong female characters and diverse casts need to absolutely destroy on opening weekend before Hollywood gets the message? This should be the norm for filmmaking going forward, not the exception.

The raunchy R-rated comedy Girls Trip, starring Jada Pinkett Smith, Regina Hall, Tiffany Haddish, and Queen Latifah, achieved an incredible A+ audience rating score and racked up a jaw-dropping $30.4 million at the box office. THR points out that Girls Trip‘s haul is “the best start for an R-rated comedy in two years and the best showing for any live-action comedy so far this year. The movie achieved those distinctions because it appealed to an array of audiences: African Americans made up 51 percent of ticket buyers, followed by Caucasians at 38 percent.” Hey, did you know that audiences universally appreciate excellent casting and scripts and women being goddamned hilarious? It’s so funny how that works out!

By contrast, Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk also had a strong opening with $50.5 million, but that movie had $100 million budget and wall-to-wall ad campaigns, whereas Girls Trip was a steal with a $20 million budget. This is the summer of leading ladies absolutely owning critical praise and mining box office gold. Hollywood, MORE OF THIS. I want to stop writing about successful badass women-at-the-forefront properties having to prove anything to anyone anymore. (via THR)

  • Wait, what?

     And then the plot, it thickens, after the TSA straight-up denies it had any part in the comics travel ban.

  • Swimmer Michael Phelps raced a shark, or something? I was in the woods all weekend. Someone has to parse this one for me. (via Pajiba)
  • All of the other Funkos can go home forever.
  • This is really, really not a good look for Ready Player One author Ernest Cline, a.k.a. “Nerd Porn Auteur.”
  • A better way to act is to be like Circa Survive guitarist Brendan Ekstrom, who stopped his performance mid-song to alert security after catching sight of a woman being sexually harassed in the crowd. (via The Daily Dot)
  • Every time I think I can’t be more excited for Thor: Ragnarok I am actually incorrect in this assumption.
  • The Pokemon Go Fest was an unmitigated disaster where players could not even play Pokemon Go. I imagine it was a little bit like spending the day as a magikarp, basically just helplessly thrashing around in a field.  (via Polygon)

So what’s on your mind today, my little fishies?

Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site!

—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—

(image: Universal Studios)

Have a tip we should know? tips@themarysue.com

Author
Kaila Hale-Stern
Kaila Hale-Stern (she/her) is a content director, editor, and writer who has been working in digital media for more than fifteen years. She started at TMS in 2016. She loves to write about TV—especially science fiction, fantasy, and mystery shows—and movies, with an emphasis on Marvel. Talk to her about fandom, queer representation, and Captain Kirk. Kaila has written for io9, Gizmodo, New York Magazine, The Awl, Wired, Cosmopolitan, and once published a Harlequin novel you'll never find.
twitter

Filed Under:

Follow The Mary Sue:

Exit mobile version