Entertainment
The Most Divisive Sci-Fi Movie of 2025 Redeems Itself on Digital
Following the grand critical and commercial success of their first two films together — The Favourite and Poor Things — star-producer Emma Stone and director Yorgos Lanthimos seem to have hit a roadblock. They’ve had their collective freak on for a while now, but it was apparently a little too much for mainstream audiences. Their last film together, Kinds of Kindness, grossed just $16 million at the worldwide box office. But it only cost around $15 million to produce. Their latest collaboration, however, is a far more costly affair. The darkly comic sci-fi thriller Bugonia, in which Stone plays somebody who could be an alien, grossed just $33 million at the global box office, against a reported budget of $55 million — it’s the most expensive movie of Lanthimos’ career. Despite the underperformance, the movie seems to be drawing crowds on digital, after being launched at home this week.
According to FlixPatrol, Bugonia was the second-most-watched movie on the domestic Apple TV charts on November 26, a feat that it repeated on November 27. On both days, Paul Thomas Anderson‘s One Battle After Another was the number one movie on the Apple charts. Bugonia also features Jesse Plemons and newcomer Aidan Delbis in supporting roles as characters who kidnap a CEO played by Stone, convinced that she’s an alien. Bugonia is a remake of the 2003 Korean movie Save the Green Planet!, and is co-produced by Ari Aster, who is himself struggling with poor box office results. After breaking out with Hereditary and Midsommar, Aster has directed two major flops: Beau is Afraid and Eddington.
‘Bugonia’ Opened to Positive Reviews, But Divided Audiences
Both movies proved to be as divisive as Bugonia, which is sitting at a “certified fresh” 87% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. The website’s consensus reads, “Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons are at the top of their game in Bugonia, a bonkers entertainment that applies director Yorgos Lanthimos’ whip-smart method to modern society’s madness.” In his review, Collider’s Ross Bonaime described Bugonia as “one of the strangest, absurd, and darkest comedies you’ll see this year.” It received a disappointing B grade according to CinemaScore, which explains its underperformance at the box office.
You can now watch Bugonia at home, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
- Release Date
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November 7, 2025
- Runtime
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119 minutes
- Director
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Yorgos Lanthimos
- Writers
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Will Tracy
- Producers
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Andrew Lowe, Ari Aster, Ed Guiney, Emma Stone, Jerry Kyoungboum Ko, Lars Knudsen, Miky Lee, Yorgos Lanthimos, Kasia Malipan, Will Greenfield
