‘The End of Oak Street’ Is Fading Fast, But Not Without a Fight at the Box Office
Warner Bros. took a genuine creative swing this summer with a genre mashup that borrowed liberally from beloved sci-fi touchstones, betting that star power and a distinctive premise could carve out space in an incredibly crowded marketplace. That gamble arrived with real pedigree behind it, backed by producer J.J. Abrams and a cast led by two proven box office draws.
The film’s opening weekend didn’t quite hit the numbers Warner Bros. had hoped for, landing well below expectations for a movie carrying an Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor pairing. Still, months later, the film has managed to stick around theaters longer than its shaky debut might have suggested.
‘The End of Oak Street‘ is now approaching the end of its theatrical run, grossing $2.9 million during its fourth three-day weekend domestically, a steep 40.8% drop from the previous frame. That decline pushes the film’s domestic total to $50.6 million, with trackers now projecting a final U.S. run somewhere between $55 million and $58 million.
That trajectory represents a fairly steep fall from a film that opened with real promise, at least reputationally. ‘The End of Oak Street’ earned a Certified Fresh 85% score on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, positioning it as one of the better-reviewed studio releases of the summer despite its commercial struggles.
The film’s opening weekend told a very different story than its reviews did. The film debuted with just $20 million domestically, marking Anne Hathaway’s lowest wide-release opening weekend in seven years, since 2019’s ‘The Hustle’ opened to $13 million. That soft start placed ‘Oak Street’ among the eighth-worst wide release debuts of Hathaway’s career.
Written and directed by David Robert Mitchell, the film follows suburbanites Denise and Greg Platt, played by Hathaway and McGregor, whose entire neighborhood is mysteriously transported back to the age of dinosaurs, forcing the family to fight for survival alongside their children, played by Maisy Stella and Christian Convery. The film has drawn comparisons to a blend of ‘Jurassic Park’, ‘E.T.’, ‘Stranger Things’, and ‘Cloverfield.’
Audiences responded with a middling “B” CinemaScore, a grade that suggests decent but unspectacular word-of-mouth heading into subsequent weekends. That combination of strong critical reception but soft opening night reaction from audiences has largely defined the film’s entire theatrical run.
Cosmic Book News reported that the film’s underperformance arrived amid a broader slump for Warner Bros. at the domestic box office, with some coverage specifically noting weaker turnout among female moviegoers despite the film’s family-driven marketing approach. That framing has added extra scrutiny to a release that carried a production budget between $80 million and $92 million.
Globally, the film has managed to climb to $105 million worldwide against that budget, meaning its international performance has done much of the heavy lifting in getting the film closer to profitability. With its domestic run now winding down in the $55 million to $58 million range, ‘Oak Street’ looks set to close out as a modest performer that never quite found the audience its reviews suggested it deserved.
What do you think is the biggest reason The End of Oak Street struggled commercially?
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