Bottoms Goes Wide At The Box Office And Shoots For $3.7 Million Labor Day Weekend
Are Emma Seligman and Rachel Sennott the Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro of queer indie cinema? That remains to be seen, but their second feature "Bottoms" definitely has the potential to be the sleeper hit of August. "Bottoms" is about PJ (Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri), two lesbian high school seniors desperate to get laid before college. So, they start a women's self-defense club, hoping to hook up with the cheerleaders who join.
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the film employed a staggered rollout. It opened in just 10 locations across the U.S. on August 25, 2023, taking in $516 thousand (or about $51,625 per theater), enjoying a boost from great buzz (read /Film's review here) and discounted $4 tickets on August 27, aka National Cinema Day.
A week later, it opened wide across 715 theaters, and its momentum hasn't dissipated. Though "The Equalizer 3" was the box office king of Labor Day Weekend, "Bottoms" looks to make a healthy gross too (it helps that these two films fit totally different niches). "Bottoms" took in $1.2 million on its Friday wide premiere and, from figures so far, Deadline estimates the film is on track for a $3.1 million three day take and a $3.7 million four day haul.
MGM's release strategy for "Bottoms" mirrors A24's distribution of "Everything Everywhere All At Once," which opened limited, went wide, and ultimately exploded its way into a Best Picture win. Last week, "Bottoms" scored the highest per-theater average since the pandemic began, surpassing the record set by "EEAAO" in 2022 ($50,965 across ten theaters).
Based on this first wide weekend, "Bottoms" stands a good chance of coming out on top.
Getting to Bottoms
To celebrate the wide release (and early success) of "Bottoms," Seligman posted on Instagram the story of how she and Sennott committed to making "Bottoms" (and including their mutual friend, Ayo Edebiri) back in 2017. The first picture shows Sennott posing with the whiteboard on which they outlined the film. Take a look to see if you can spot differences from the final cut.
As Seligman tells it, she and Sennott spent five years writing the film across locations such as "various [New York University] buildings, west village coffee shops, our apartments, over zoom for a year." She closes the post with the plea, "Support loser queers and girlfailures by getting yourself a ticket."
During this long writing process on "Bottoms," Seligman turned her student short "Shiva Baby" into a feature. In both versions, Sennott plays Danielle, an aimless college student who runs into her ex (Molly Gordon in the feature) and her sugar daddy (Danny Deferrari) at a shiva. The film worked because it was so close to reality; despite the specific cultural backdrop, the setting of an uncomfortable family gathering is one that anyone can relate to. To reflect Danielle's anxieties, Seligman frames her shots tightly and sometimes zeroes out the sound, creating a sense of claustrophobia right out of a horror film.
"Bottoms," on the other hand, is absurd. The outlandish, mile-a-minute comedy is more akin to the stars' comedy shorts, "Ayo and Rachel Are Single." This movie-to-movie tonal shift proves Seligman's directing talents are flexible and reaffirms Sennott and Edebiri as two of the brightest rising stars in movies (and TV) today.
"Bottoms" is playing in theaters.