At $5.9M, Margaret‘s opening is slightly ahead of the $4.75M opening for Kelly Fremon Craig’s The Edge of Seventeen. The pic is on a healthy 53-day theatrical perhaps it finds a 5x multiple and grosses its $30M budget. What Lionsgate wanted here was the opportunity to play into Mother’s Day weekend. Would Margaret have made more money if it was in the fall? Possibly a tad, but not likely double what we’re seeing here: the overall IP is a feathered fish for today’s female moviegoers. 16 release date when there was hardly any product on the calendar, but was then staring in the eyes of New Line’s (then perceived) Harry Styles potential breakout, Don’t Worry Darling. The 55+ demo was the largest quad, with Caucasians numbering 70%. Some 55% of Margaret‘s audience were over 45, women over 25 numbered 62%, women under 25 were 16%.

Margaret‘s prime audience are now moviegoers who are slow to make their way to theaters, and even slower post pandemic: over-50 Caucasian women.

They weren’t 53-year-old properties like Margaret. But Crawdads was a four-year-old bestseller, and Five Feet Apart just a year old before going theatrical. You can’t say that there’s no place for female- skewing movies based on bestsellers: Sony’s Where the Crawdads Sing, in the midst of a very competitive summer, busted through with a $17.2M opening, $90.2M stateside take, and near $75M in profit - and that was off bad reviews! Then there was Lionsgate’s Five Feet Apart (released in 2019), which opened to $13.1M off bad reviews and legged out to just over $45M. Those few who came out and gave the picture great exits were the noisiest on social, but at a low wattage, as the pic only had a social media reach of 66.1M across TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, per RelishMix. Despite excellent reviews at 99%, an A CinemaScore, and great PostTrak of 4 1/2 stars and 88% positive, there’s no urgency for the first big screen take of a Judy Blume novel. Photo Credit: Dana Hawley Lionsgateĭiving into the numbers this AM, oy, Margaret.

Rachel McAdams as Barbara Dimon and Abby Ryder Fortson as Margaret Simon in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.

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