Nobody expected The Housemaid to do what it did.
It opened on December 19, 2025 — right in the middle of the busiest movie season of the year. Its first weekend in North America? $19 million. Studios would call that modest. Maybe even a slow start. But then people started talking — and they didn’t stop for weeks.
By late January 2026, the film had crossed $305 million at the worldwide box office. On a $35 million budget. That’s not just profit. That’s a statement.
How a $35 Million Film Beat Everyone
The Housemaid is based on Freida McFadden’s bestselling 2022 psychological thriller of the same name. Sydney Sweeney plays Millie Calloway — a young woman on parole who takes a job as a live-in maid for a rich couple on Long Island. Amanda Seyfried plays Nina Winchester, the wife who hired her.
On paper, it sounds like a setup you’ve seen before. In practice, it’s a trap. For Millie. And for you.
Director Paul Feig — the man behind Bridesmaids and A Simple Favor — keeps the tension low and slow in the first hour, then turns the screw hard. Rebecca Sonnenshine’s script strips the story down to its core: Millie cannot lose this job. Her parole depends on it. And the family she’s working for is hiding something.
The film runs 2 hours and 11 minutes. By the end, almost everything you thought you knew is wrong.
The Numbers Nobody Saw Coming
Here’s what makes this story worth paying attention to.
The Housemaid earned $116 million in the United States and $189 million internationally. It topped the box office in the UK, France, Mexico, and Spain nearly a month after its original release — beating newer films in all four countries. The UK alone brought in $23.7 million. France added $17.5 million.
According to Variety, the film is expected to finish its theatrical run at $225 to $275 million worldwide. That estimate was written when the film sat at $200 million. It has since blown past $300 million and kept climbing.
This is the part most coverage missed. The Housemaid wasn’t a big Christmas blockbuster. It was a slow-burn word-of-mouth machine. People watched it, told their friends, and those friends bought tickets. That cycle ran for six weeks straight.
What the Film Actually Gets Right
What strikes me most about this film isn’t the twist. It’s Sweeney.
Millie has been hurt before. You feel that in every scene she walks into. She’s watchful. Careful. She doesn’t trust anyone in that house — and she’s right not to. Sweeney plays all of that without overplaying a single second. No dramatic speeches. No obvious moments where she signals to the camera that something bad is coming. She just acts like someone who knows better.
And Seyfried is equally good, which is harder to pull off. Nina hired Millie knowing more than she lets on. The way Seyfried carries that hidden knowledge — giving just enough to make you uneasy — is what holds the whole film together. Nina is not simply a villain. She’s a woman who made a plan and is watching it go wrong.
Brandon Sklenar plays Andrew, Nina’s husband, with enough ambiguity that you never fully trust him. Michele Morrone as Enzo, the Italian groundskeeper, adds a completely different kind of pressure to the story. The whole cast earns their place.
The film doesn’t wrap up cleanly. That, too, is the point.
A Sequel Is Already in the Works
The Housemaid hit VOD on February 3, 2026. So if you missed it in theaters, you can watch it now.
But the bigger news is what’s coming next.
Lionsgate announced that The Housemaid’s Secret — based on the second book in McFadden’s trilogy — is already in development. Sweeney has signed on as executive producer and is expected to return as Millie, though no formal acting deal has been finalized yet. Paul Feig is expected to direct again. Michele Morrone is also anticipated to return.
“The global box office results and the enthusiastic response on social media clearly indicate that audiences have resonated deeply,” said Lionsgate’s Chair Adam Fogelson in a statement to Deadline.
Amanda Seyfried holds an executive producer title on the sequel as well. Her character doesn’t appear in McFadden’s second novel, but given what the first film earned, don’t count anything out just yet.
The fact that a sequel was greenlit before the film even left theaters tells you everything about how this ended up.
The Real Reason It Worked
Most big films in 2025 were sequels, reboots, or franchise installments. The Housemaid was none of those things — at least, not when it opened.
It was a mid-budget adaptation of a book people already loved. It starred two of the most interesting actresses working today. It had a director who knows how to make genre films feel alive. And it didn’t talk down to its audience.
The film was rated R and ran over two hours. Studios usually panic at both of those things. The Housemaid proved that when a story is genuinely gripping, people will sit in the dark for 131 minutes and pay to do it again with their friends the following weekend.
Hollywood has been trying to figure out the formula for that for years.
Turns out it wasn’t a formula at all.
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