Zendaya’s Controversial New A24 Movie Takes No Prisoners at the Box Office

1 week ago 9

Robert Pattinson and Zendaya in The Drama

Published Apr 5, 2026, 9:58 AM EDT

Rohan Naahar is a Weekend News Writer for Collider. From Francois Ozon to David Fincher, he'll watch anything once.

He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema.

On a weekend dominated by two behemoths — the holdover hit Project Hail Mary and the new release The Super Mario Galaxy Movie — a film aimed at older audiences, primarily women, provided much-needed counter-programming. The film stars Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as a couple whose impending marriage is thrown for a loop when the bride-to-be makes a startling confession. The twist has already become a subject of heated online debate, with some calling it a clever piece of satire while others find it in poor taste. Nonetheless, the controversy seems to be helping build buzz around the movie, which delivered a solid haul in its first weekend at the domestic box office.

Project Hail Mary grossed more than $30 million in its third weekend, taking its domestic total past the $200 million mark and overtaking the lifetime haul of Christopher Nolan's Interstellar. Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and starring Ryan Gosling, the sci-fi film took the number two spot on the domestic chart this weekend. The number one spot was claimed by The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, a sequel to The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which grossed $1.3 billion in 2023. Featuring the voices of Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Charlie Day, the sequel grossed roughly $190 million across the extended five-day Easter frame.

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Here's How Much the Controversial New A24 Film Grossed

The third spot was claimed by Zendaya and Pattinson's film, The Drama. The dark comedy, directed by Kristoffer Borgli, opened to mostly positive reviews. It now holds a "Certified Fresh" 77% critics' score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus reads, "Flirting with complex themes, The Drama walks a tonal tightrope with impressive poise thanks to career-highlight performances by Robert Pattinson and Zendaya." In his review, Collider's Ross Bonaime praised Borgli for making "one of the most excruciatingly uncomfortable and wonderfully honest approaches to a romance story to come around in quite some time." The Drama, also starring Alana Haim and Mamoudou Athie, grossed an estimated $14 million in its opening weekend, against a reported budget of $28 million. This is in the same range as Zendaya's 2024 release Challengers. It's roughly thrice as much as the $4 million that the Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh-led film We Live in Time, also distributed by A24, earned in its first weekend of wide release that same year. This is the third-biggest opening in A24's history, ahead of Materialists and behind Marty Supreme and Civil War. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.