Why Did Sydney Sweeney’s New Movie ‘Christy’ Flop?

Sydney Sweeney’s new film, Christy, had the hallmarks of a box-office win. There was a buzzy biopic premise and a physically intense lead performance, and there were more than 2,000 theaters behind its release. Yet the movie opened to just $1.3 million, marking Sweeney’s third box-office underperformer of the year.

So what went wrong?

Christy follows former professional boxer Christy Martin (played by Sweeney) through her rise in the ’90s and the harrowing 2010 attempted murder by her husband and coach. Critics weren’t raving about the movie, but they weren’t panning it either. On Rotten Tomatoes, 67 percent of 138 reviews are positive, with the site even noting, "While Christy falters in tonal cohesion and emotional impact, it remains a compelling showcase for Sydney Sweeney's transformative performance, grounding a mythic genre in raw, personal storytelling."

The Guardian gave the film two stars after its Toronto premiere, writing that Sweeney’s "a convincing force to be reckoned with inside of the ring… but she can’t get us to believe in all that much outside of it, an actor still trying too visibly hard to make it all seem effortless.”

Still—none of that fully explains a $1.3 million opening. Which is why TikTok has stepped in with theories.

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Over the past year, Sweeney has dominated headlines for everything but her acting: a sudsy bath-water-soap campaign, that viral American Eagle jeans ad, and a GQ interview where many felt she tiptoed around the controversy rather than shutting it down. Online, some argue the nonstop chatter created fatigue instead of hype.

“The people that would probably go to see this movie about a women’s boxing champion who suffered from DV; those are the audience members that she lost with all of her shenanigans this year," pop culture critic Holden Smith said in his TikTok.

And audiences may simply be tapping out. Earlier this year, Sweeney’s indie dramas Americana and Eden also posted weak numbers, though their releases were much smaller.

Sweeney’s is playing it cool online. In an Instagram post about the movie, she said she was “deeply proud of this movie.”

“Thank you to everyone who saw, felt, and believed and will believe in this story for years to come,” she said. “If christy gave even one woman the courage to take her first step toward safety, then we will have succeeded. so yes I’m proud. why? because we don’t always just make art for numbers, we make it for impact. and christy has been the most impactful project of my life. thank you christy. i love you.”

Redemption may be on the horizon, though. Sweeney’s set to star in The Housemaid alongside Amanda Seyfried. Can she bounce back from a string of flops and a year of controversy? Only time will tell.