So Sydney Sweeney’s new movie *Americana* hit theaters and, uh, it did not exactly eat. Opening weekend box office? Half a million dollars. That’s like one Birkin bag in Hollywood money. But the film’s director, Tony Tost, is not sweating the flop vibes at all.
Instead of spiraling, Tony hopped on X (the app formerly known as Twitter but still basically Twitter) and started talking about how movies live forever, not just in the moment they come out. Translation: yeah, nobody’s buying tickets now, but just wait until you guys rediscover it in 2030 and call it “underrated cinema.”
He also admitted the timing of the release was… rough. The film dropped right when the internet was roasting Sydney for her American Eagle campaign, which means *Americana* basically got dragged down in the chaos. According to Tony, the movie was “gobbled up by the zeitgeist.”
And here’s the kicker—Tony claims he always knew this was going to be a “hidden gem” kind of movie, not some billion-dollar Marvel flex. He even used Letterboxd to document his whole filmmaking journey like a cinematic diary. Basically, he’s calling his own movie a diamond in the rough, and he’s daring us to come back later and see it sparkle.
So yeah—Sydney’s movie may have tanked now, but in true Tumblr-core fashion, it’s already got the “cult classic incoming” energy.
One of the great things about movies is that they outlive the zeitgeist into which they were released. As someone whose first film sorta got gobbled up by the zeitgeist, I'll be curious to see how it'll stand up after this moment is over. Hopefully fairly well!
— Tony Tost (@tonytost) August 22, 2025