Box Office: Taylor Swift’s ‘Release Party of a Showgirl’ Triumphs With $33 Million, Dwayne Johnson’s ‘Smashing Machine’ Bombs With $6 Million https://t.co/qIIC45daSJ
— Variety (@Variety) October 5, 2025
Taylor Swift is not content to rule the music charts, so she returned to cinemas with The Official Release Party of a Showgirl, which made over $33 million to lead the weekend. It isn’t really a film so much as an extension of the promotion of her latest album, but it still picked up an additional $13 million internationally with only a couple of weeks of advance notice for sales.
In second place was last week’s winner, One Battle After Another, which made between $10.3 million and $11.1 million, depending on the source, for a drop between 49% and 53%.. The lower of the two estimates brings its totals to $41 million domestic and $101.7 million internationally. It’s officially the highest grossing film of Paul Thomas Anderson’s career, easily beating out There Will Be Blood’s totals.
The Rock’s newest effort The Smashing Machine did not exactly smash the box office charts, bringing in $6 million domestic, well under estimates of $8 million to $15 million, and a B- Cinemascore from audiences. A24 spent $50 million on the film, and presumably large cuts of that number went to the salaries of stars Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, who did not attract the expected audiences. This is the worst opening of Johnson’s career.
Rounding out the top five were two previous releases. Gaby’s Dollhouse brought in an additional $5.2 million after opening last weekend, and The Conjuring: Last Rites added $4 million to its massive $167.8 million domestic take after its fifth weekend of release.
