He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema.
Sydney Sweeney’s comeback film can be described as both a sleeper hit and an instant blockbuster. This is quite unusual. The movie continued to make millions of dollars at the box office even after the initial buzz around its strong opening had died down. The film’s success was made all the sweeter as Sweeney was coming off a streak of box-office disappointments. In the year preceding the blockbuster’s release, Sweeney starred in four films that either underperformed or straight-up bombed at the box office. Most of those movies, it was later understood, featured the Euphoria star in roles that audiences didn’t exactly want to see her in. Sweeney broke out with the HBO show, which is returning for a third season this Sunday, and then graduated to big-screen stardom with the romantic comedy Anyone But You.
Released at the tail end of 2023, Anyone But You became a word-of-mouth hit, grossing around $230 million worldwide. But Sweeney couldn’t sustain the momentum with her follow-up vehicles — the long-delayed neo-Western Americana, the star-studded survival drama Eden, the critically panned superhero movie Madame Web, and the sports film Christy. It took over a year for her to bounce back with her December 2025 release, The Housemaid. Based on a bestseller by Freida McFadden and directed by Paul Feig, the twisty thriller received positive reviews and greatly impressed its target audience.
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
Also starring Mamma Mia star Amanda Seyfried and Taylor Sheridan favorite Brandon Sklenar, the movie holds a “Certified Fresh” 73% critics’ score and a “Verified Hot” 92% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. The aggregator’s consensus reads, “A sly throwback to the lurid thrillers that used to dominate multiplexes, The Housemaid cleans up nicely thanks to its wicked sense of fun and a delightfully unnerving performance from Amanda Seyfried.” The Housemaid wasn’t just a hit domestically, but it also made a killing in international markets. The movie’s cumulative worldwide haul stands at a stunning $399 million. The movie continued to perform in theaters even after it was released on PVOD platforms. According to FlixPatrol, The Housemaid has spent more than 60 days on the domestic iTunes chart. Feig and Sweeney are set to return for a sequel, which will also feature Kirsten Dunst. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
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Rebecca Sonnenshine, Freida McFadden
Todd Lieberman, Paul Feig