According to a report from Variety.com, The Hustlers has had a stellar opening weekend thus far, hauling in a domestic box office amount of $13.1 million from approximately 3,250 theaters. If analysts continue to get their estimates right, the movie could earn $32 million on Sunday, effectively paying off its budget in one weekend.
This makes The Hustlers one of Jennifer Lopez’s best-performing movies in recent memory, with the exception of movies in which she was a voice actor, such as in the Ice Age franchise.
The Hustlers revolves around a crew of former strip club dancers, spearheaded by Lopez, who begin ripping off their Wall Street clients for money.
The movie first debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival and has earned nothing but critical praise thus far, moreover, the movie cost a meager $20,000,000 to produce. This is a much-needed success for the Hollywood business following the failure of movies like Best Of Enemies, Uglydolls, and Poms.
Furthermore, perhaps the newest female-empowered movie, The Kitchen, was also a massive box office flop, led by Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, and Common, among others.
Written and directed by Lorene Scafaria, The Hustlers has an ensemble and star-studded cast including Lizzo, Cardi B, Lili Reinhart, Keke Palmer, Julia Stiles, and Constance Wu. Even though the movie has performed well, it’s still falling behind Warner Brothers’ hit, It: Chapter Two.
It isn’t all good news at the box office this weekend, considering The Goldfinch, from Warner Brothers, pulled in not even one million dollars from 2,542 theaters.
On a more interesting note, Prevention.com reported that the story behind The Hustlers is actually a real one. In 2008, five women were charged with multiple counts of conspiracy, grand larceny, and forgery, for luring unsuspecting men into a strip club and robbing them.
The outlet claims that the group of women essentially manipulated Wall Street men, encouraging them to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in clubs all over New York City, and stealing a few thousand a night.
Source: https://www.npr.org