‘The Drama’ Solidifies Zendaya as Our New Indie Box Office Queen

The "Euphoria" and "Dune" star now has two original indie hits between A24's "The Drama" and "Challengers."

We’re always looking for the movie stars who can genuinely open a movie, the people whom you go to the theater to see because of them. A few weeks ago, we argued that Ryan Gosling was now on that relatively short list. But if you want to make an indie movie an event, are there reliable names to whom you can turn?

With A24‘s “The Drama” pulling in $14.3 million at the domestic box office this weekend, placing it among some of the better A24 openings ever (No. 2 for an A24 wide release behind only “Civil War”), especially for an original, non-genre film, we’d argue Zendaya deserves the crown as our new Indie Box Office Queen.

Of course, Zendaya is a movie star (and also Meechee); she’s a big part of the success of franchises like “Spider-Man,” “Dune,” and is the star of “Euphoria.” But “The Drama” is the second independent, original story she has helped open between this and 2024’s “Challengers.”

In fact, “The Drama” opened only slightly behind “Challengers” ($15 million), and young people especially turned out because of Zendaya’s presence, alongside Robert Pattinson. Eighty percent of the audience for “The Drama” was under 35, with about 30 percent between 18-24, compared to just 76 percent for “Challengers,” and the gender-skew for “The Drama” was 68 percent female to 58 percent for “Challengers.” Additionally, exit polls for “The Drama” revealed that 70 percent of the audience went to the film because it starred Zendaya and Pattinson.

You could argue she hasn’t had her “Project Hail Mary” yet, a non-franchise studio blockbuster that proves she can open any film. But she’d do good to keep some A24 projects or the like in her back pocket, even as she awaits the release of “Dune: Part Three,” “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” and Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey.”

Like her “Dune” co-star Timothée Chalamet, she knows how to reach the TikTok crowd and do so with thought-provoking, even controversial movies.

Who else could plausibly be vying for the throne for Indie Box Office Queen? Kristen Stewart has had an especially long indie track record ever since leaving behind her “Twilight” days. But “The Drama” has already surpassed Stewart’s “Love Lies Bleeding” or the Princess Diana film “Spencer.” Her two biggest indie hits were over a decade ago with “Café Society” and “Still Alice.”

Zendaya’s fellow “Euphoria” breakout Sydney Sweeney also loves doing indies in between more commercial fare, but she’s had a rough streak between “Americana,” “Eden,” “Reality,” and “Christy.” Her best performance from the indie side was the horror film “Immaculate” for Neon that she also produced, which brought in $34.9 million globally.

Florence Pugh and Dakota Johnson might be the other two names who are on the podium with Zendaya, as each have their own A24 hits, with Pugh backing “Midsommar” ($48.5 million WW) and “We Live in Time” ($58.4 million WW) and Johnson most recently fronting “Materialists” ($107 million WW) but also “Splitsville,” “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” and “Daddio.” And we’ll see what Anne Hathaway can do with A24’s “Mother Mary” after she had some underwhelming results with “Eileen” and “Armageddon Time.”

“Materialists” is A24’s closest comp to “The Drama,” a movie that also twisted traditional rom-com elements and has even sparked some conversation over each film’s marketing. “Materialists” opened to $11.3 million domestic and legged out to $36.5 million domestic, with the bulk of its haul coming from international box office that powered it to over $100 million globally. “The Drama” even had a better CinemaScore than “Materialists,” a B versus a B-. With a similar multiple, it suggests that “The Drama” could leg out to around $45 million domestic, which would easily cover a budget we’re hearing is around $25 million.

Those certainly aren’t “Spider-Man” numbers, but they’re big ones in what is the first for a huge year ahead for Zendaya, our official new indie queen.