The Weeknd's Movie Debuts... As A True Flop

Forbes

19-05-2025

The Weeknd's film Hurry Up Tomorrow debuts with just $3.3 million, falling far short of expectations ... More despite a top 10 box office entry. The Weeknd at the "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning" U.S. premiere held at Lincoln Center Fountain Plaza on May 18, 2025 in New York, New York. (Photo by Kristina Bumphrey/Variety via Getty Images)
Heading into its opening weekend, Hurry Up Tomorrow — the first major film starring the musical superstar The Weeknd — was not expected to perform well. Early whispers suggested that the movie wasn't great, though most critics hadn't seen it yet, and projections for its first weekend were modest (at best). Sadly, things turned out even worse than many had predicted. Though Hurry Up Tomorrow has only been in theaters a few days, it already looks like it may become a true commercial bomb, and the future doesn't look bright for the project.
Between May 16 and 18, Hurry Up Tomorrow earned only $3.3 million at the box office in the United States. It debuted in more than 2,000 theaters, but brought in an average of just over $1,600 per location, a hugely disappointing figure for a release of this magnitude.
Despite the weak performance, Hurry Up Tomorrow still manages to debut inside the top 10 on the U.S. box office ranking. It opens as the sixth highest-grossing title in what turned out to be a particularly sleepy weekend in America.
The tally was led by new arrival Final Destination: Bloodlines, the latest installment in the horror franchise. That film launches with a massive $51 million — more than twice what runner-up Thunderbolts earned during the same time period.
Final Destination and Hurry Up Tomorrow were the only two new arrivals to break into the upper reaches of the chart, according to Box Office Mojo… though their box office performances are hardly comparable.
The opening weekend numbers are even more disappointing than projections suggested they may be. Ahead of its release, Deadline predicted that the film might earn between $5 million and $9 million in its first few days. Unfortunately, bad word-of-mouth and dismal reviews appear to have plagued the musical feature. As of the time of writing, Hurry Up Tomorrow holds just a 16% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
At this point, it may be difficult for Hurry Up Tomorrow to recover its reported $15 million budget. Opening weekends are when many films generate a large portion of their total box office earnings, particularly in the U.S. While some go on to have longer lives, most of the excitement tends to be concentrated around their heavily-promoted debuts. This past weekend, the film brought in just about one-fifth of its production budget — and that's not even accounting for advertising, marketing, and other expenses.
The film is tied to The Weeknd's latest full-length album of the same name. Released in January, the collection has already produced several hit singles and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Sadly, the Grammy winner's popularity and the success of the musical project haven't translated into a successful film debut. As it stands, Hurry Up Tomorrow looks destined to go down as a true flop.