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Sarah’s Oil arrived with the kind of confident whisper that usually hints at a slow and steady march toward awards season. The biopic, adapted from Tonya Bolden’s 2014 book Searching for Sarah Rector: The Richest Black Girl in America, carried strong critical support before its release, and many expected a respectable showing for Amazon MGM Studios. The studio believed the modest $18 million budget would be easy to handle, yet the film’s run at the box office has turned into one of the biggest low-budget disappointments of the year.
Sarah’s Oil Box Office Performance So Far
The movie entered theatres on November 7, sharing the week with Predator: Badlands and Nuremberg. Badlands stole nearly all the attention with strong action appeal, and Nuremberg held steady with its own audience. Sarah’s Oil, meanwhile, slipped under the bright lights the moment it stepped onto 2,410 screens across the United States. The opening day brought in $1.7 million, which looked acceptable for a low-budget drama. Still, the weekend total stopped at a little above $4.2 million, averaging $1,768 per theatre and landing at number 4 on the weekend chart. It never climbed any higher after that.
The decline arrived fast as the second weekend slipped to $2.2 million. The third dropped again to around $800,000, a sign that the audience interest faded quicker than expected. The film’s domestic and overseas figures for the last weekend remain unknown, but the total so far sits at $10.6 million, as per Box Office Mojo.
