The Weeknd And Jenna Ortega's New Movie Bombed At The Box Office

Published 6 hours ago• 3 minute read

. Even so, these movies should have been able to co-exist as counter-programming in an ideal scenario. That's not how things panned out, though.

"Hurry Up Tomorrow," which Shults co-wrote with The Weeknd, aka Abel Tesfaye, and Reza Fahim, centers on a musician who is plagued by insomnia and is pulled into an odyssey with a stranger who begins to unravel his existence. Barry Keoghan ("Saltburn," "Eternals") also stars alongside Tesfaye and Ortega.

Unfortunately, the film continues Lionsgate's bad streak at the box office dating back to last year. The good news is that the movie carries a reported $15 million budget, so it's not going to be a massive money loser. The other good news for Lionsgate is that Live Nation footed the budget, with the studio simply serving as a distributor in this cast. Still, Lionsgate clearly had bigger things in mind given the star power involved with this one.

Jenna Ortega as Anima staring outside of a rain-soaked window in Hurry Up Tomorrow

Lionsgate

It didn't help that critics were, at best, mixed on "Hurry Up Tomorrow." /Film's Witney Seibold, for example, called the movie "all style and no substance" in his review. This also marks two misfires in a row for Ortega, who is one of Hollywood's biggest rising A-list stars. She also headlined A24's "Death of a Unicorn," which disappointed in theaters when it opened in March. Ortega is very much a big star in the right project, particularly if that's within a pre-existing franchise, as we saw in 2024 with "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice." Unfortunately, turning original movies into hits is far more challenging in this day and age.

As The Weeknd, Tesfaye has sold nearly 25 million albums worldwide. While he is ditching his alter-ego after the release of "Hurry Up Tomorrow," the notion of a recording artist of his magnitude branching out into movies is not at all unheard of. Just look at what Prince did with "Purple Rain." But that was the '80s and this is now. The fact of the matter is "Hurry Up Tomorrow" just didn't resonate with its intended audience in the early going.

In the aggregate, the movie could make its money back by boosting sales of the Weeknd's album. It also could easily catch fire on streaming/VOD, given the star power Ortega brings to the table. After all, the Ortega-led "Miller's Girl" hardly registered at the box office but was a big hit on Netflix. That's the benefit of keeping a budget low: It can still make its money back over time. You don't run the risk of doing what Paramount did with the Robbie Williams biopic "Better Man," which flopped badly earlier this year. Having a major recording artist team up with a bankable movie star for a film was a decent enough idea on paper. In this case, it just didn't work out.

"Hurry Up Tomorrow" is in theaters now.