There’s a scene in “The Housemaid” where Sidney Sweeney and Brandon Skrenner watch old episodes of “Family Feud” with host Richard Dawson. While filming this tense scene in early 2025, a lightbulb suddenly went on in Sweeney’s head.
“Sid said, ‘We have to continue ‘Family Feud,’ and I thought, ‘That’s an interesting idea,'” recalls director Paul Feig. “And I called Lionsgate and said Sid wanted to do ‘Family Feud.’ They were like, ‘Let’s make it happen.’
Lionsgate’s public relations team did just that. The movie’s stars, including Feig and Amanda Seyfried, competed on the Dec. 4 episode of ABC’s “Celebrity Family Feud.” The episode went viral, racking up 1.5 million video views within a linear window, according to TalkWalker Social Content Ratings, which tracks interactions for primetime broadcast and cable entertainment series. And when it was released on December 19th, the thriller (a throwback to the ’90s, low-budget blockbusters like The Hand That Rocked the Cradle and Basic Instinct) became a global phenomenon, especially among female audiences.
“The Housemaid,” which is now in its fourth weekend in theaters, has not lost its momentum in Japan and continues to be released in overseas regions such as Germany (January 15th) and South Korea (January 28th), and is in second place behind “Avatar: Fire and Ash” in the mid-week tally. Last weekend’s box office performance was the best of any movie in theaters, down just 1% from the previous weekend. With a budget of $35 million, “The Housemaid” has already grossed more than $140 million.
“Sydney understands her brand better than anyone I’ve ever met, and her willingness to embark on ‘Celebrity Family Feud’ should not be underestimated,” said Lionsgate Film Group Chairman Adam Fogelson. “You can imagine someone with that much star power saying, ‘I don’t know if I want to do it.’ And not only did Sydney do it, but she was willing to do it, as did Amanda, Brandon and Paul. They all came together to make it happen.”
The film is expected to gross between $225 million and $275 million worldwide, a bright spot in a difficult box office situation. In an unexpected turn of events, international sales could become larger than domestic sales. In France, “The Housemaid” was marketed as an erotic thriller and became a huge box office success ($18 million to date).
The Housemaid is the third film Fogelson has greenlit since becoming chairman of the film group. Two other songs, “The Long Walk” and “Now You See Me,” were also well-received by theatergoers. The teen thriller The Long Walk earned $63 million of its $20 million budget, while Now You See Me: The Next Generation of Illusionists earned $220 million against the sequel’s $90 million budget. These three films helped Lionsgate reverse the downturn it had been in through most of 2025.
Still, the big takeaway from the success story of “The Housemaids” is that female viewers remain underserved, something Feig has proven time and time again with hits like “Bridesmaids” and the “A Simple Favor” series. Based on the best-selling novel by Frieda McFadden, The Housemaid already had a rabid fan base before Lionsgate cast the popular Sweeney in the lead role (she also served as an executive producer). For Feig, the success of “The Housemaid” is an important win for female viewers who have become increasingly indifferent to blockbusters with market caps of $300 million.
“There’s a lot of excuses in Hollywood that they don’t want to do[movies that work for them]because they don’t think women will be in them, but that’s wrong,” he says.
And Fogelson, who greenlit Universal’s hugely profitable films “Fifty Shades of Gray” and Feig’s “Bridesmaids,” has long recognized the potential for female audiences.
“There are more opportunities for female viewers than Hollywood has historically taken advantage of,” Fogelson said. “And whether it’s a movie that’s more specifically targeted at a female audience, or whether you’re able to make a satisfying movie with a book that works for a female audience, I think this definitely just amplifies that trend.”
Naturally, a Housemaid sequel is in the works, even if a deal for Feig and Sweeney to return hasn’t been finalized yet. The sequel will also feature four key roles, two men and two women, and the agency is actively marketing the best candidates.
Other studios may try to replicate the “Housemaid” script, and Amazon may consider the possibility of releasing the third installment in Feig’s “A Simple Favor” series theatrically rather than continuing with its streaming-only release plans. (Amazon has never released full numbers for “Another Simple Favor,” but the sequel is believed to have racked up more than 50 million views, which is a massive viewership.
But Lionsgate is uniquely poised in a broader release space because it has lower overhead than traditional studios ($800 million vs. $100 million annually). Major studios have largely stopped hitting singles and doubles because their models are based on an all-or-nothing swing. But that doesn’t mean this strategy won’t bring benefits.
Fogelson said: “People tend to write that small-to-medium-sized films don’t work in Hollywood anymore, but that’s simply not true. We have lower overheads and higher marketing efficiencies that allow us to run a business on these kinds of movies in addition to heavy hitters like ‘The Hunger Games,’ ‘Twilights,’ and ‘John Wicks.’ It just creates a completely different business opportunity.”
