Audiences mostly loved Easter Sunday; movie critics had mixed reactions

Mixed reviews and contrasting audience reaction greeted Easter Sunday, Jo Koy's groundbreaking movie centering on a Filipino American family reunion. 

Those who went to the theaters to watch the movie wer moved to tears at seeing Filipinos on the big screen depicting and talking about recognizable Filipino stuff and people. As Rotten Tomatoes shows, most people like what they saw.

Was it the best comedy ever? No. Was it the worst comedy ever? Far from it. 

It opened last weekend to mixed reviews. Reviews by non-Asians didn't get the inside humor that Filipinos recognized. 

Reviews by Asian Americans were a bit more generous because they viewed the film in the context of the historic role it had in featuring a Filipino American family.

 The box office returns were mediocre but the results were what was expected.

Marketing should have been better considering outside of the Filipino American community.

I admit that I live in an AANHPI bubble so I got a lot of social media about the movie, However,  on the regular networks and print media, I didn't see a single TV ad promoting the film, even in the Bay Area where there are hella lot of Asian and Filipino Americans.

The weirdest shit came from Filipinos on social media some who didn't like that Koy was half-white (therefore not a real Filipino, therefore doesn't have the right to talk about his Filipino relatives; he couldn't speak Tagalog, therefore he's not a real Filipino; he was more American than Filipino; he was dating an "Anglo;" therefore doesn't have the right to be proud to be Filipino.)  

 Koy’s dream of debuting “Easter Sunday,” shot during the height of COVID, in theaters in time for the holiday was in question as the pandemic lingered. But going directly to streaming — even through services like Netflix, which has been a major platform for Koy’s work (his fourth Netflix comedy special is set to drop in September) — wasn’t an option as Koy was adamant about taking the film to the big screen.

“It’s relatable, it’s about a family that loves and cries and laughs together. It’s a basic ingredient for any family movie, so why wouldn’t this have a chance to be on a silver screen like everybody else?” he said. “We deserve that.”

But Koy emphasizes that this moment is not just about him, saying he wants to see more diverse representation on the big screen.

“I’m not just talking about Filipinos, I’m talking about everybody,” Koy said. “I want to see more stories about other ethnicities and other cultures because that’s what we’re living in right now.”

“Audiences very much want to see themselves onscreen, because it means to them they’re part of the country, that they matter,” Chandrasekhar added. “The dream is alive when you see yourself up there.”

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“Easter Sunday” is coming during “this really amazing moment in Asian American history and Filipino American history, where political, social, and economic capital has all come together,” said Eric Pido, an Asian American Studies professor at San Francisco State University with a background in Filipina/o American Studies. He predict to Associated Press that younger generations will raise Filipinos’ profiles in the next few years.

“I think Filipino Americans are no longer shying away from sort of taking a representational role in American politics, which will bring up all sorts of interesting things about Filipino American culture that lots of folks just don’t think about,” Pido said.

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Easter Sunday is being released by Universal Pictures exclusively in theaters and that means the movie is not going to be available for streaming online. However, for those who don’t want to visit the theaters yet and would rather watch the movie elsewhere, here’s good news. Universal Pictures has a new release strategy beginning in 2022. All the new releases from the company are going to stream on their streaming service, Peacock, 45 days after the theatrical premiere. They will also be available to rent or purchase. Easter Sunday is also expected to follow suit. So, you can expect to stream the family comedy in about a couple of months, probably sometime in the fall of 2022.

 Easter Sunday, starring comedian Jo Koy, started with just $5.2 million this weekend. The $17-million budgeted film won’t suffer a huge loss, but not even hitting that number in gross, despite Men’s budget not being substantiated, would make it just the third film of the summer not to see its domestic gross at least match its reported budget, along with The Bob’s Burgers Movie and Paws of Fury.

Here’s the full list of top 10 films for the week:

1. Bullet Train (Sony): $30.1M – 4,357 theatres
2. DC League of Super-Pets (Warner Bros/DC): $11.2M (-51.3%) – 4,332 theatres
3. Nope (Universal): $8.4M (-54.3%) – 3,016 theatres
4. Thor: Love and Thunder (Disney): $7.6M (-42.3%) – 3,400 theatres
5. Minions: The Rise of Gru (Universal): $7.1M (-35.1%) – 3,188 theatres
6. Top Gun: Maverick (Paramount): $7.0M (-16.4%) – 2,760 theatres
7. Where the Crawdads Sing (Sony): $5.6M (-25.4%) – 3,164 theatres
8. Easter Sunday (Universal/Dreamworks): $5.2M – 3,175 theatres
9. Elvis (Warner Bros): $4.0M (-30.3%) – 2,411 theatres
10. The Black Phone (Universal): $1.4M (-41.6%) – 1,197 theatres

According to reports, Universal Pictures’ Jo Koy starring comedy drama ‘Easter Sunday’ in the USA premiered on 5 August 2022 in more than 3100 theaters, collecting $2.03 million on its opening day and $5.44 million on its opening weekend at the domestic box office. Overall, ‘Easter Sunday’ has so far collected $6.73 million domestically and $32k overseas, for a worldwide total of $6.77 million[1].

With an opening gross of $5 million, the $17 million production ‘Easter Sunday’ performed up to expectations at the box office, even when it was released with Brad Pitt’s ‘Bullet Train’. But on the other side, ‘Easter Sunday’ needs to earn more than $50 million at the box office to recover its total cost including prints and advertisements, and to be successful. $50 million is not a huge amount, but critics claimed that ‘Easter Sunday’ is not a long-running film, and when the film receives poor reviews, it means the film will end its box office with less than $30-35 million, which is not too well, and ‘Easter Sunday’ is overall an average film.

Yellow Rose, $150,330 opening weekend.

The Fabulous Filipino Brothers didn't have an opening weekend. After a series of one-night showings, it went to Hulu so there is no box office report.

Lingua Franca, received warmly, anna Duvernay, opened on Netflix.

Opening Weekend:

$150,330 (40.9% of total gross)