This summer was a rather lackluster one at the box office in some regards outside of the biggest titles, but there were still a scattering of movies that were surprise successes for Hollywood. One of those successes was the R-rated comedy Good Boys from director Gene Stupnitsky. Good Boys has been plugging along after a solid debut and is now quietly getting close to a huge box office milestone.
According to Box Office Mojo, Good Boys now sits at a cool $98.7 million worldwide; that’s just a shade under the huge $100 million box office milestone. To date, the R-rated comedy starring Jacob Tremblay, Keith L. Williams and Brady Noon has made $77.3 million at the domestic box office and added another $21.4 million overseas. Good Boys should surely hit $100 million worldwide before its time in theaters comes to an end.
Crossing the $100 million threshold will be a nice feather in the cap of a film that is already an unquestionable success. Good Boys was made on a production budget of $20 million before marketing costs. So a $100+ million worldwide gross will see Good Boys making 5X its budget back at the worldwide box office. That well exceeds the rule of thumb that says a movie needs to make back 2X-3X its budget in order to be profitable.
Good Boys’ performance has been impressive and also kind of under-the-radar. When it debuted in first place back in August to the tune of $21.4 million opening weekend, it marked a nice comeback for the R-rated comedy genre, which has had a rough go of it lately. It had been three years since an R-rated comedy took first place in its opening weekend prior to Good Boys, and Good Boys didn’t stop there.
Following its opening weekend, Good Boys stayed in the thick of it, actually adding theaters in its second and third weekends. Good Boys did quite well over Labor Day weekend, and with the help of an extra day, actually grew its box office over its second frame. The comedy has not dropped more than 50% week over week, and Good Boys only fell out of the top five at the box office this past weekend, its sixth in theaters.
Good Boys likely benefitted from the strength of positive reviews. The R-rated flick received solid notices from critics and is at an 80% Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics and audiences don’t always agree, but in this case they did, and Good Boys managed a “B+” CinemaScore.
This year’s other Superbad-esque, R-rated comedy, Booksmart, also received a “B+” CinemaScore and even better reviews. It’s tough to know exactly why Good Boys succeeded to a degree Booksmart could not, but it may come down in part to release date. Good Boys debuted in an August, a month that’s traditionally a bit of a dumping ground.
This August was interesting. though. with quite a few notable releases, but it still wasn’t competitive as May, when Booksmart released near huge films like John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, Aladdin, Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Avengers: Endgame, which was still in the mix at that time. So it looks like Good Boys chose its release date wisely, and with any luck, its success could mean we get more R-rated comedies in the future.
Good Boys is still playing. Check out our 2019 Release Schedule to keep track of what’s headed to theaters this fall.
