Harry Styles tops the Billboard Hot 100 and is No. 1 at the box office with ‘Don’t Worry Darling’
The former One Direction singer has began an acting alongside a solo singing career that has proved extremely fruitful.
Olivia Wilde’s new film, Don’t Worry Darling, came out last weekend and took the top spot at the box office. It features Harry Styles alongside Florence Pugh as a married couple, though Pugh’s charcter becomes suspicious of some of her husband’s dealing with his company.
Don’t Worry Darling earned $19.2 million at the US box office during opening weekend, and made another $10.8 million internationally. Market estimates suggested the film would make between $17 million and $20 million over its opening weekend, according to Variety. It cost around $35 million to produce meaning it will need to make twice that to make a profit.
Despite a good opening weekend the film has not been met with enthusiasm by critics. It currently holds a rating of 38 percent on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes. However, audiences have been more positive about the film giving it a 78 percent rating. Particular praise was levied at Pugh’s performance while the internet had a collective laugh at some unintentionally funny acting from Styles.
A factor behind its relative success is the lack of new films in the cinema as we approach the Autumn. Though big blockbusters were released in early Summer like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Top Gun: Maverick, little else new and particularly exciting has been on the big screen. To emphasise this, the rerelease of the original Avatar film, now 13-years old, took $10 million.
Styles’ new Billboard chart record
While his acting may have been criticised, Styles can at least rely on his musical qualities. During the summer he released a new album called Harry’s House which has proved immensely popular. The lead single of the album, As It Was, currently has more than 1.3 billion plays on Spotify.
This huge amount of streaming numbers pushed the track to the top of the Billboard singles chart 15 weeks ago. It is still nestled there in pole position, the longest any solo artist has held the spot.