Bottoms Grosses $516k From Just 10 Locations In Small But Mighty Opening Weekend

Lesbian losers starting a high school fight club as part of a secret plot to seduce cheerleaders? It's more successful than you might think! At the box office, at least, where Emma Seligman's R-rated indie comedy "Bottoms" has grossed $516k in a limited release across just ten locations nationwide. The movie is getting a wide release on 700 screens next weekend, and if its good fortunes continue it could expand even further (especially given all the movies getting delayed these days). 

"Bottoms" is captained by two rising stars: Ayo Edebiri, known for her leading role in acclaimed FX/Hulu series "The Bear"; and Rachel Sennott, who was the highlight of last year's comedy-horror "Bodies Bodies Bodies" and also starred in Seligman's feature directorial debut, "Shiva Baby." Between rave reviews (95 percent on Rotty T's!), a great trailer, and an attendance boost from National Cinema Day, it looks like "Bottoms" will overtake "Everything Everywhere All At Once" to score the highest per-theater average since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Deadline reports that current estimates have "Bottoms" at $51,625 per theater compared to the record-setting $50,131 for "Everything Everywhere...," which also kicked off with a limited release before going wide.

According to filings from Louisiana Economic Development the budget for "Bottoms" was just over $11.3 million (in Louisiana expenditure, at least, which qualifies for generous tax credits of up to 40 percent). It's a tough world out there for raunchy R-rated comedies these days, as "Strays" recently learned. But "Bottoms" has a per-theater average 20x higher than "Strays" did on its opening weekend, so this could be one of the lucky movies to break through.

Kicking things off with a limited release in key markets can be a solid strategy to build buzz for indie movies. "Bottoms" hit screens primarily at Alamo Drafthouse locations and arthouse cinemas in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin — markets that are, at the risk of generalizing, likely to be receptive to a chaotic indie comedy about a lesbian-led teenage fight club. And word-of-mouth promotion is more important than ever since the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike means that actors can't directly promote their movies right now.

Next weekend's big new release is the Denzel Washington-led action sequel "The Equalizer 3," which should co-exist pretty peacefully with "Bottoms" thanks to the two movies appealing to different demographics. According to Deadline, 86 percent of the audience for Seligman's high school comedy was in the 18-34 age range. When "The Equalizer 2" hit theaters, 80 percent of the audience was over 25, and 65 percent of ticket buyers for the first movie were over the age of 30. While the audience for the first "Equalizer" movie was pretty evenly split between men and women, the crowd for "Equalizer 2" was 60 percent male (per The Hollywood Reporter), and "Bottoms" polled highest among women under the age of 25.

Looking at the success of the "Equalizer" movies also highlights another potential booster for "Bottoms": appealing to an under-served demographic, and thereby drawing out people who otherwise might not be in a theater. Black audience members made up 31 percent of the opening weekend crowd for "The Equalizer 2," and the opening night for "Bottoms" was 59 percent LGBTQ+. It will be interesting to compare its wide release numbers next week to last year's R-rated rom-com "Bros," which opened big in 3,350 locations but grossed an average of just $1,448 per theater.