‘Baby Driver’ is Edgar Wright’s First $100M Hit and Has Grossed More Than All His Movies Combined
Zack Sharf
Edgar Wright never had a $100 million hit until “Baby Driver,” which crossed the milestone at the domestic box office on Sunday, August 13. The action movie has been breaking one record after another for Wright’s career. In just one week it made $39 million, more than any other movie in the director’s career, and now that it has climbed above $100 million it has grossed more money than Wright’s four previous films combined.
“Shaun of the Dead,” “Hot Fuzz,” “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” and “The World’s End” were all popular with critics and die-hard Wright fans, but they weren’t exactly box office smashes. Only “Scott Pilgrim” had made it above the $30 million mark before “Baby Driver’s” breakout success. To say Wright is overjoyed would be the understatement of the year.
“I honestly didn’t have any idea how it would do, and that’s one of the things that’s so absurd,” Wright said to Vulture about the movie’s success. “You know things are going well when you get congratulatory emails from people you’ve never met.”
“Baby Driver” opened June 28 and earned nearly $30 million in its first five days, beating out the life totals of every Wright movie except “Scott Pilgrim.” The movie is one of the most acclaimed nationwide releases of the summer, and it held on remarkably well through July, falling $30%-40% throughout the entire month. The movie has never dropped more than 45%, a remarkable feat for a studio movie in today’s box office climate.
“I’m just happy that it’s an original movie that’s done well,” Wright said. “Getting an original movie made in this day and age, it seems at least five times harder, and maybe more, just because the majority of the studio effort is going into existing IP and franchises. Original films, by their very nature, become more of a gamble, and thus to see a studio take the gamble and have it pay off for them and for me is amazing. It makes me feel very encouraged and inspired that it did well.”
With the movie continuing to kick ass at the box office, it’s inevitable that sequel talk has begun. Wright isn’t ruling out a potential “Baby Driver” follow-up for now, though he does have other projects in development, such as the apocalyptic coming-of-age comedy “Grasshopper Jungle.”
In its first seven days in theaters, Baby Driver made $39 million, more than any Wright film had grossed in its entirety in the U.S. Now, Baby Driver’s $100 million take is bigger than all of his other movies combined.
“It has been spoken about and I have some cool ideas, so we’ll see where that goes.” Wright told Vulture about a sequel. “Then I’ll be one of those franchise guys!”
“Baby Driver” is still playing in theaters nationwide.
