Sydney Sweeney's $400 Million R-Rated Thriller The Housemaid Arrives on HBO Max

A film that spent months on one streaming service has found a second life on another. Sydney Sweeney’s R-rated thriller The Housemaid began streaming on HBO Max on October 9, according to TheWrap’s October lineup. The movie had been on Starz in the U.S. since April, and CBR reports it was back at No. 1 within a day of reaching HBO Max.

A Bestseller Becomes a Box-Office Hit

Directed by Paul Feig, The Housemaid adapts Freida McFadden’s 2022 bestselling novel. Sweeney plays Millie Calloway, a young woman with a troubled past who takes a live-in housekeeping job for a wealthy couple played by Amanda Seyfried and Brandon Sklenar. Their seemingly perfect home hides dark secrets.

The film was a major box office success. FandomWire, citing Box Office Mojo, reports it earned $400.5 million worldwide on a budget of about $35 million. It also holds a 92% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, according to the same report.

McFadden’s novel launched a series of psychological thrillers that built a large readership through word of mouth, and the film arrived with that audience already waiting. Its marketing leaned on the book’s reputation for sharp reversals, and reviewers have taken care not to spoil them, which has helped the film keep its surprises intact for viewers who discover it on streaming.

What Made the Numbers Possible

Lionsgate released the film in the United States on December 19, 2025, after a New York premiere on December 2. Rebecca Sonnenshine wrote the screenplay, Feig produced alongside Todd Lieberman and Laura Fischer, and Sweeney, Seyfried and McFadden are credited as executive producers. The picture runs a little over two hours, and Theodore Shapiro composed the score, his eighth collaboration with Feig.

Its commercial path is unusual. Domestic ticket sales reached about $125.6 million, according to Rotten Tomatoes, which means the majority of the worldwide total came from overseas. A return of roughly eleven times the production budget is rare for an R-rated adult thriller, and it came during a stretch in which Sweeney’s earlier releases had struggled to find audiences.

Sweeney’s Box-Office Turnaround

Industry coverage framed the release as a turning point for its lead. Fangoria noted that the film broke a run of disappointing results for Sweeney and held its own in theaters against Avatar: Fire and Ash, which opened the same weekend. That kind of resilience matters in a market where adult-oriented thrillers rarely compete with large franchise releases for screens. Sweeney is credited as an executive producer on the film and as a producer on the sequel, which gives her a stake in how the franchise develops from here.

Critics and Audiences Went Different Ways

Reviews were mixed to positive. Rotten Tomatoes lists a critics’ score in the mid-70s, while audiences were far more enthusiastic, with the 92% figure placing it among the best-liked thrillers of the year. Many reviewers pointed to Seyfried’s performance as the highlight, and several described the film as a deliberately over-the-top throwback to the glossy domestic thrillers of earlier decades. Fans of the book, meanwhile, were drawn by the twists that made the novel a word-of-mouth success.

The Ensemble Behind the Story

The film is built around three central performances. Sweeney anchors the story as Millie, Seyfried plays the wife of the household, Nina, and Sklenar plays her husband, Andrew. Morrone, the Italian actor who became widely known through the 365 Days films, appears as Enzo and returns for the sequel. The cast works within a setting that is mostly confined to a single house, which gives the movie the claustrophobic tension that readers of the novel will recognize.

Streaming’s Long Tail

The move to HBO Max shows how a film can keep earning attention long after its theatrical run. After its time on Starz, the title reached a much larger subscriber base and quickly returned to the top of the platform’s chart. For viewers who skipped it in theaters, the arrival is a convenient chance to catch up before the sequel, which is more than a year away, and for the studio it keeps the property in front of the audience that will decide how the second film performs.

Millie Returns in December 2027

A sequel, The Housemaid’s Secret, is set for theaters on December 17, 2027, after Lionsgate greenlit it in January 2026. Sweeney returns as Millie and also produces, Feig directs again, and Rebecca Sonnenshine writes the script. Michele Morrone returns as Enzo, and new cast members include Kirsten Dunst and Brittany Snow. The sequel adapts McFadden’s second book, in which Millie takes a job with a man who forbids her from entering a guest room where his supposedly sick wife rests.

The source material leaves room for more. McFadden’s series includes several follow-ups, among them The Housemaid’s Wedding and The Housemaid Is Watching, so further films are possible if the sequel performs well. The December 2027 date also places it in a crowded holiday window, where it will share the calendar with several large releases, including Avengers: Secret Wars.