Ella McCay‘s box office performance gets even more bad news, as the 20th Century Studios film just suffered a huge second week drop.
According to Variety, the dramedy managed to gross only $480,000 from 2,500 theaters in its second weekend, making for a steep 75% drop from its opening. The film’s box office total stands at only $3.5 million so far, a disastrous result.
A drop of 75% is one of the 100 worst second-weekend fall-offs in movie box office history, per Box Office Mojo. Ella McCay sits in the company of films like Blindness (2008) and Free Fire (2017), both of which also suffered 75% drops in their sophomore weekends.
With a reported budget of $35 million, even modest success is now off the table for Ella McCay. Using the traditional Hollywood rule of thumb, the film could be looking at a break-even point of $87.5 million, a figure that is now very clearly far out of reach.
Starring Emma Mackey, the new movie from director James L. Brooks follows an ambitious young woman who struggles to balance work and family life following a surprise promotion to state governor. The rest of the Ella McCay cast includes Jamie Lee Curtis, Woody Harrelson, Spike Fearn, Rebecca Hall, Ayo Edebiri, Kumail Nanjiani, and Jack Lowden, among others, but the on-screen talent evidently wasn’t enough to aid the film at the box office.
Mackey is well known for starring in Netflix’s Sex Education and has also appeared in Barbie (2023) and Death on the Nile (2022). The star doesn’t have experience opening a film as the lead, however, and the box office performance of Ella McCay makes clear that she is not yet an actor who can pull audiences to theaters.
Accompanying a poor showing at the box office, Ella McCay reviews have been generally quite negative from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, Brooks’ latest movie has only a 24% critics’ score. The audience-driven Popcornmeter score is higher but still decidedly mixed at 54%.
Broadly, the 20th Century Studios-distributed movie has been criticized for falling short when it comes to both comedy and drama, attempting to strike a tonal balance that just doesn’t come together. Ella McCay has also caught flack for seeming behind-the-times when it comes to its portrayal of women in power, and its attempts at political commentary also fall flat.
Disney owns 20th Century Studios.
In addition to co-creating The Simpsons, Brooks is responsible for celebrated movies like Terms of Endearment (1983) and Broadcast News (1987). Since 2000, though, Brooks has struggled to deliver a hit, with films like Spanglish (2004) and How Do You Know (2010) both underperforming.
It remains to be seen how Ella McCay will fare in its third weekend, but the film is now essentially guaranteed to end its run as a significant critial and commercial disappointment.
Release Date
December 12, 2025
Director
James L. Brooks
Writers
James L. Brooks
Producers
Julie Ansell, Richard Sakai