According to Deadline, Don’t Worry Darling topped the domestic box office in its first weekend.
The movie, which was directed by Olivia Wilde, brought in $19.2 million, somewhat more than the $17 million that had been projected. It’s also a respectable debut amount for a film with a $35 million production budget. Of course, it’s impossible to talk about Don’t Worry, Darling’s box office result without taking into account the influence of all the drama preceding up to its release.
Shia LaBeouf’s departure from the ensemble in 2020 has generated controversy, and the actor has denied Wilde’s assertion that he was sacked.
In the viral video where Wilde supposedly tells Shia that whatever was happening behind-the-scenes “could be bit of a wake-up call for Miss Flo,” in reference to Florence Pugh, LaBeouf claims he “quit the film due to lack of rehearsal time.”
With LaBeouf’s departure, Harry Styles was given the opportunity to play Jack Chambers, the spouse of Pugh’s Alice. Styles not only played her leading guy in Darling, but he also rose to the position of Wilde’s main man in real life. When asked about rumors that she had an affair with Jason Sudekis, Wilde said in an interview with Vanity Fair, “The complete horseshit idea that I left Jason for Harry is completely inaccurate,” adding, “Our relationship was over long before I met Harry.”
Styles became embroiled in the fight over the movie when a video of him allegedly spitting on co-star Chris Pine went viral. In a performance on The Late Show, Wilde brushed off the incident.
“But I think it’s a perfect example of, like, people will look for drama anywhere they can,” she said. “Harry did not spit on Chris, in fact. … That is exactly what I mean though. People can look at a video that shows evidence of someone not spitting on someone else and they’ll still see what they wanna see. And that is the creation of drama and that is clickbait.”