📹 ‘The Housemaid’ Proves Hollywood’s ‘Dead’ Genres Still Have Life

Counter-programming strikes back amid ‘Avatar’ and ‘Zootopia 2’

Thanks to Disney’s powerful twosome of Avatar: Fire and Ash ($40 million in North America) and Zootopia 2 ($19 million in its seventh weekend, down just 4 percent from the prior weekend), the 2026 box office got off to a banging start. But for Sean McNulty and Richard Rushfield, it’s the strong holiday season success of Lionsgate’s The Housemaid that proves there’s still life in the well-worn genres of Hollywood’s past. The Paul Feig thriller grossed $15 million over the weekend, a drop of just 3 percent, and should crack $100 million before the end of the month.

“When The Housemaid was released, I saw a lot of people writing it off like, ‘Oh, this is a streaming movie. I hope people will show up for this, but probably no one will because we don’t go to thrillers anymore. It’s an old-time movie,” Richard says of the twisty mystery starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried. “But, lo and behold, thrillers appear not to be totally dead.”

“I mean, you’re playing it down,” adds Sean. “Outside of Avatar and Zootopia, this is the movie of the holidays.”

The Housemaid follows a recent trend of counter-programming holiday season blockbusters with female-skewing titles like Sony’s Anyone But You (which also starred Sweeney) and, to a lesser extent, A24’s Babygirl (with Nicole Kidman). It’s also pitched at younger demographics, an age group Hollywood desperately needs to nurture for its future success.

“There is room for this kind of movie to exist,” says Sean, also noting the similar strength of Marty Supreme, with 30-year-old Timothée Chalamet in the lead role, over the holiday season. “Young people are embracing the movie, which is based on a popular book. Basically, all the things that movies used to do, this movie is doing. It’s just nice to see when a plan comes together.”

Elsewhere on this episode of Monday Morning Quarterbacks: Avatar: Fire and Ash blasts past $1 billion but probably will fall short of $2 billion (“So if this is $1.8 billion, it’s a massive failure,” jokes Richard); the Stranger Things finale theatrical stunt scores with younger viewers; and a preview of the slow weekend ahead with the year’s first new releases, including Gerard Butler’s return to Greenland.