'Reagan' surpasses expectations with $9.2M opening weekend despite panning from critics
Dennis Quaid's "Reagan" outperformed expectations, earning an estimated $9 million during its opening weekend — nearly doubling projections of $5 million. The film finished third at the box office, trailing behind "Deadpool & Wolverine" and "Alien" and secured the No. 3 per-screen average.
Audiences awarded the film an A CinemaScore and a 98% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a stark contrast to the 18% score from critics. This 80-point disparity is the largest gap between critics and audiences in Hollywood history, according to a media release. It surpasses the previous record of 65% held by "The Boondock Saints," which had a 91% audience approval and a 26% critic score.
"We are thrilled to be sitting in the top 5 with our first movie in a competitive market over this holiday weekend. We expect the film will continue to grow in the weeks ahead, especially in the South and Midwest," said exhibition veteran Kevin Mitchell, president of the newly launched Showbiz Direct, which released the film on 2,750 screens.
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The film earned $7.4 million Friday through Sunday and has an estimated cumulative total of $9.2 million, which includes projections for Labor Day Monday.
Set during the Cold War, "Reagan" follows former President Ronald Reagan's journey from his small-town beginnings to Hollywood stardom and ultimately to the world stage as the 40th president of the United States.
Directed by Sean McNamara ("Soul Surfer," "Miracle Season"), the film presents a cinematic exploration of Reagan's enduring legacy, focusing on his resilience and the support of his wife. The story is narrated by Viktor Petrovich, a former KGB agent whose life intersects with Reagan's during his Hollywood years.
In addition to Quaid as Ronald Reagan, the film stars Academy Award winner Jon Voight, Golden Globe nominee Penelope Ann Miller, BAFTA nominee Mena Suvari, Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Kevin Dillon and Disney star David Henrie.
The film's success comes after a series of setbacks. Originally planned for a 2023 release, "Reagan" faced production delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns and was further postponed by an actors' strike. It resumed shooting seven months after initially shutting down.
Quaid previously revealed to podcaster Joe Rogan that there were "a couple of attempts to cancel me" during the production of "Reagan." He also said Facebook censored online promotion of the film out of concern the content could "sway an election," though the social media platform later blamed the "mistake" on its "automatic systems."
Though not an overtly political film, Quaid previously told The Christian Post that the film highlights Reagan's ability to maintain relationships with political adversaries, an attribute he said is especially relevant today.
"Reagan had a very good relationship with Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill," Quaid recalled. "They were political enemies, but they knew how to dialogue and get along outside of the political arena."
"But back then, we had conservative Republicans, conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans and liberal Democrats," he said.
"Reagan put it like this: 'If somebody disagrees with you on 30% of the issues, that doesn't make you a 30% enemy. It makes you a 70% friend. And that's where they came from to have a dialogue coming out," Quaid continued.
"He and Tip O'Neill said, 'We'll go at it from 9 to 6, but after that, we're just a couple of Irishmen having a beer.' Having a dialogue is really what it's about. I think that's what we need to get back to in this country. We all seem to want to, and we're searching around for how to do that. It's been so long, there's so much divisiveness. It's like you can't have these conversations. It's OK if you have a different opinion because we all want the same thing. How we're going about it is just different. If that's your belief, then OK, but we can we can differ, and we can still get along."
At the film's red carpet premiere, Daily Wire CEO Jeremy Boreing told CP that Reagan, often portrayed as polarizing by the left, was actually a unifying figure, as evidenced by his sweeping victory in 49 states during his reelection.
Boering suggested that the left tends to label any successful opposition as divisive, a tactic that persists today, as evidenced by the censorship by major social media platforms like Facebook.
"Reagan was the most unifying figure to run for president in the lifetime of most of us here today. Who can lay claim to 49 states in a reelection bid? The left likes to frame any successful opposition as being polarizing," he said.
"You see some of that even today in censorship by Facebook," he added. "Everyone on the right deals with censorship by the major social media platforms. We've never seen an expression of informational political power in this country like what we're witnessing, just in the events of the last 45 days. And it's easy to be dispirited. It's easy to lose hope. It's easy to look around the world at the worst examples of where these sorts of events can lead and think that we're doomed to repeat those. I don't think that's the case at all. I think we're called to be optimistic.
When God said, 'Be fruitful and multiply before sin ever enters the world,' that's a fundamental call to optimism that Christians are supposed to embrace. And seeing the success within the living memory of a figure like Reagan, I think should remind us all of that."
Leah M. Klett is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: leah.klett@christianpost.com
