A24 has scored a $31m top 10 hit with Celine Song’s Materialists in North America, thanks to a carefully calibrated campaign that has revived interest in the rom-com genre – and the first wave of international releases through Sony appears to be doing the same.
Two years after A24 released Song’s first feature, the Oscar-nominated romance Past Lives, the company reunited on the filmmaker’s latest love triangle story with producers Killer Films and 2AM. The goal was to appeal not just to rom-com fans, but audiences who were interested in the return of an acclaimed filmmaker with a predilection for nuanced storytelling.
A starry cast with strong chemistry helped. Unlike Song’s 2023 film, which featured experienced albeit lesser-known actors anchored by a breakout performance from Greta Lee, Materialists boasts household names in Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans.
But before the A-list cast could be deployed in service to the story of an elite New York matchmaker attracted to a wealthy man and her less well-off ex, A24 wanted to spark conversation and capture the subtleties of a story that is sexy, funny, and bracingly honest about the financial realities of dating in the modern age.
Three trailers
Ahead of the June 13 release, A24 released three distinct trailers to capture the tonal intricacies of the film. The first on March 18 introduced the leads and made it clear who was who. For the second trailer on May 22, the emphasis was on nostalgia and recalled the 1990s, a halcyon age of rom-coms that produced celebrated titles like Notting Hill, You’ve Got Mail, and Never Been Kissed. The third trailer drop on May 27 was a sharp, provocative homage to the old Mastercard commercials and played with the idea of a person’s value in the dating economy.
On June 6, A24 created the menofny.com website to gather intelligence on the attributes of anonymous single men from New York and list their likes and dislikes in potential partners. The resulting “romantic value” scores fed into a live ticker at the New York Stock Exchange and appeared on mobile billboards throughout the city.
The fact that the three leads clearly enjoyed each other’s company was a big boon. Besides print and online interviews, they participated gamely in question-and-answer formats like Vogue’s Off The Cuff and LADbible Entertainment’s Would You Rather?, and Hot Ones, an increasingly popular promotional staging post that requires subjects to discuss their careers while eating chicken wings dipped in progressively hotter sauces. Poster art featured all three leads together and as individuals.
The opening weekend proved a solid counterpoint to How To Train Your Dragon and holdovers like Lilo & Stitch, Ballerina and Karate Kid: Legends and exit polls revealed the film was most popular with under-35 females. New York and Los Angeles were predictably the major markets for the film, but there have been big turnouts in other key metropolitan areas like Boston, Dallas, Miami, and Phoenix.
Materialists opened on $11.3m from 2,844 locations to deliver A24’s third-highest debut after Civil War on $25.5m in April 2024 and Hereditary on $13.6m in June 2018. Three weeks later it has demonstrated solid legs with holds on about 49% and heads into its fourth weekend over the Fourth Of July holiday in eighth place and will play in fewer than 1,931 sites.
International roll-out
At the same time, the film is in the early stages of international release. It had already earned $10m through Tuesday from around 22% of the international footprint, buoyed by $3.7m from Australia, and a raft of mostly Eastern European territories. Materialists opens in France and Belgium this week, and Latin America at the end of July. Song’s film opens in the UK on August 15, a time when few female-oriented films are opening in the territory.
A24 has exchanged information and some materials with Sony’s international distribution team – as the partners have done on Sally Hawkins horror Bring Her Back, which stands at $19.3m after five weekends in North America and opens in the UK on July 26.
Sony had recent experience in rom-coms, having released Anyone But You in late 2023 onwards, and It Ends With Us in autumn 2024. Materialists combined the former’s classic rom-com essence with the more serious and romantic-skewing elements from the latter.
Without the availability of all three leads to promote the film in person outside North America due to commitments, the international campaign for Materialists has leaned into the fun and frothy aspect of the film. It has established the characters through the one-sheet and a single international trailer that focus more on the dating process itself, and used behind-the-scenes footage of the stars discussing their favourite romantic films,
Among Sony’s tricks best tricks so far have been a series of “girls night out” advance screenings in Australia and Netherlands; women-only events promoted in cinema lobbies, on social platforms, and media portals.
While US box office is a vital component of a film’s overall success, Screen understands that favourable reviews on film and culture websites tend to galvanise international audiences. And a solid rating on Rotten Tomatoes counts for a lot, too (Materialists is currently at 88%). In that regard, North America and the international arena are in lockstep.