Box Office: ‘Lost City’ Becomes Sandra Bullock’s Eleventh $100 Million Grosser

The Lost City has passed $100 million in domestic sales, which is good news for Paramount. The original, star+concept release, which opened with $30 million in late March, had over $100 million as of Wednesday. It is as if it did not cross the dotted line yesterday. This is the first straight-up studio comedy to pass $100 million in North America since Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in July of 2019. It is the first romantic comedy or romantic drama to do so since Little Women in late 2019.

The film's continued legs even with concurrent availability on Paramount+ and priced-to- buy VOD is yet more proof that a shorter theatrical window doesn't need to be fatal. After earning $370 million domestic, the Batman cratered, but it's not like the film was flirting with $400 million domestic. If studios don't start training, a 45 day window might be possible.

Straight comedies without action/fantasy/horror and rom-coms have become extinct due to the rise of the franchise-specific tentpole. Various genres have been influenced by superhero movies. Why go to a straight-up comedy, heist flick, western, crime drama or coming-of-age story when you can get that and more with the likes of Spider-Man: No Way Home? Old-school movie stars are few and far between when marquee characters are important. The Lost City is the first live-action original to pass that benchmark since Knives Out in November of 2019.

It's important that an original, non-fantastical, non-ip star vehicle genre flick is doing well. It's not like Tom Cruise is playing a marquee character like Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. This is another feather in the cap of the lady, as we saw with Dog and its $62 million domestic box office, he is still bankable when he is not playing an action hero.

This is the 11th $100 million-plus grosser for the actress, who has done voice-over roles in The Prince of Egypt and Minions. Julia Roberts, who had 12 such releases from Pretty Woman in 1990 to Wonder in 2017), is above any other actress. It's the first time an actress has made at least $100 million in live-action star vehicles. In the 1990s she hit paydirt with Speed, A Time to Kill and The Prince of Egypt.

The majority of these films were not action-fantasy flicks. Since the opening of Gravity with $55 million, I have said that the movie star is one of the last people who will watch a non-franchise, non-IP movie. By Sunday or Monday, The Lost City will have surpassed every other Tom Cruise film save for War of the Worlds. In an industry that puts actresses out to pasture by the time they hit 40, it's worth noting that 57-year-old Bullock is still headlineng splashy and sexy rom-coms 30 years after Love Potion No. 9.

One of the reasons she remains viable is because she isn't often discussed with her main peer. She disappears from public view when she isn't making a movie or promoting a movie. She doesn't use social media to stay in the news cycle, and she doesn't engage with the media to keep her in the news. If you want to see a Bullock movie, you have to go to a theater or a streaming service like The Unforgivable or Bird Box. She is a modern-day movie star because she is still defined by her movies.