Regretting You Crushed Expectations at the Box Office
When Regretting You hit theaters on October 24, 2025, no one expected it to be the weekend’s biggest story. Critics panned it. Industry trackers predicted a modest $8-10 million opening. Instead, it stormed into first place on Friday with $5.2 million and finished the weekend with $12.85 million in the U.S. and Canada-beating every projection and proving that audience loyalty now outweighs critical opinion.
The film, directed by Josh Boone and starring Allison Williams and Dave Franco, is the second big-screen adaptation of a Colleen Hoover novel after It Ends With Us smashed records earlier this year. But unlike its predecessor, which earned praise for its emotional depth, Regretting You got slammed by reviewers. On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 30% critics’ score, with one consensus calling it "a formulaic romance that checks every box without adding anything new." The dialogue was called fan fiction. The plot, predictable. The direction, uninspired.
And yet-audiences loved it.
Why Audiences Showed Up-Even When Critics Didn’t
The numbers don’t lie. A B+ Cinemascore and an 88% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes tell a different story. On Reddit, fans posted tearful reactions: "I ugly-cried through the third act just like I did reading the book." TikTok fans drove 8.2 billion views under the hashtag #RegrettingYouMovie. The marketing didn’t rely on trailers alone-it leaned into Hoover’s 14.7 million Instagram followers, turning the film into a cultural moment before it even opened.
This isn’t luck. It’s a pattern. The "Colleen Hoover Effect" is now a proven box office formula. Her books aren’t just popular-they’re obsessive. Readers don’t just buy them; they live inside them. And when those stories hit theaters, fans show up-not for the acting, not for the cinematography, but because they feel seen. One theater owner in Ohio told me, "We sold out five shows on opening night. Not because of the stars. Because of the book club next door that drove 40 people here together."
The Numbers Behind the Surprise
Analysts were caught off guard. comScore had projected $8-10 million based on the film’s low critic score. It made $12.85 million. Paramount didn’t even need a massive marketing spend. The book’s fanbase did the heavy lifting. With a $35 million budget and a strong international debut-$3.2 million in Germany, $2.1 million in the UK, $1.8 million in France-the film already hit $22.85 million worldwide in ten days.
And the demographic? Almost entirely female. 78% of opening weekend viewers were women. Two-thirds were under 35, but nearly 30% were over 35. That’s rare for a romance film. Most target teens or young adults. This one spanned generations. Suburban multiplexes outperformed city centers-68% of tickets sold at theaters more than 10 miles from downtown. This isn’t a movie for trend-chasing urbanites. It’s for moms, teachers, nurses, and readers who’ve carried Hoover’s books in their purses for years.
It’s Not Just About the Movie
Regretting You’s success isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s part of a larger shift in what audiences want from theaters. While Bruce Springsteen’s biopic Deliver Me from Nowhere limped to $3.5 million in its first two days, a romance novel adaptation pulled in more than triple that in its first weekend. The message is clear: audiences aren’t chasing prestige. They’re chasing emotional connection.
And studios are taking notice. Warner Bros. moved up the start date for November 9, the next Hoover adaptation, from May 2026 to January 2026. The legal battle between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni over the rights to It Starts with Us is heating up-Baldoni’s team paid $4 million for the rights in 2024. The stakes are rising because the returns are too.
BoxOffice Pro revised its domestic projection for Regretting You from $28 million to $34 million. Analyst Jeff Bock put it bluntly: "The Colleen Hoover adaptations have developed their own ecosystem that operates almost entirely independent of critical reception." This isn’t a fluke. It’s a new model.
What This Means for Hollywood
For years, studios chased critics. They spent millions on awards campaigns, festival premieres, and prestige directors. But Regretting You didn’t need any of that. It didn’t win any awards. It didn’t get nominated. It didn’t even get good reviews. It just made money. A lot of it.
That’s the new reality. If you have a built-in audience of millions who’ve already cried over your story, you don’t need a 100-point marketing campaign. You just need a theater, a date, and a hashtag.
And now, every studio is looking at their romance novel catalog. The next big hit won’t come from a superhero sequel or a reboot. It’ll come from a book that’s already sitting on a bedside table somewhere, dog-eared and underlined.
Why Critics Keep Getting It Wrong
It’s easy to dismiss Regretting You as just another chick flick. But that’s the mistake. This isn’t about genre. It’s about ownership. These readers didn’t just consume the book-they claimed it. They shared quotes. They made fan art. They named their pets after the characters. When the movie came out, they didn’t go to see a film. They went to see their story come to life.
Critics judge based on craft. Audiences judge based on feeling. And right now, feeling wins.
Regretting You didn’t break any records. It didn’t redefine cinema. But it did something rarer: it reminded Hollywood that stories don’t need to be perfect to be powerful. They just need to be loved.