Margot Robbie’s A Big Bold Beautiful Journey flops at UK box office as critics call it an insufferable romantic fantasy

Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell’s new film A Big Bold Beautiful Journey opened in the United Kingdom with around £532,000 in its first weekend, failing to crack the top five at the box office. The £33 million romantic fantasy, released on September 19, drew audiences to 649 cinemas and averaged about £820 per venue, roughly 100 tickets sold per location over the frame. Robbie’s London premiere appearance in a backless, bejeweled gown did little to alter the film’s commercial reception, which has been defined by critics and industry observers as a misfire in the star couple’s collaboration with director Kogonada.

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale topped the charts in its second weekend with £2.3 million, a stark contrast to A Big Bold Beautiful Journey’s modest intake. The weekend figures underscored a wide gap between the period drama’s continued appeal and the romantic fantasy’s muted performance, reinforcing the sense that the Robbie-Farrell pairing has yet to translate on the big screen in this outing. The film’s limited theatrical impact also sits against a broader reception landscape characterized by mixed-to-poor reviews and lukewarm audience scores.

Across Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey has accumulated a cautionary reception. The film holds a 56 percent “rotten” score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 39 on Metacritic, signaling a generally unfavorable consensus. Set against the acclaim that greeted Robbie’s 2023 Barbie project, the new movie has been viewed by many critics as a misalignment of high-concept ambition and a script that fails to fully leverage the on-screen magnetism of its leads. Indiewire’s Ryan Lattanzio described the film as miscalculated, writing that it is “miscalculated as a romance and a fantasy, and while I’m loath to blame a craftsman as intelligent as Kogonada entirely for the outcome, he did, after all, agree to direct this lousy script.”

William Bibbiani, writing for The Wrap, went further in his critique, headlining his review “Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie Can’t Save This Insufferable Romantic Fantasy,” and arguing that the project didn’t give its stars enough material to animate. Tomris Laffly for Variety offered a similar verdict, noting that “despite some pretty lens flares, cutesy needle drops (and the occasional big, bold, beautiful things that pass by the window, the only destination A Big Bold Beautiful Journey approaches in the end is an unfortunate bore.” Nikki Baughan of Screendaily mirrored the sentiment, praising the attractiveness of Robbie and Farrell but concluding that the high-concept premise becomes an exercise in wading through sickly sweet treacle when not anchored by meaningful storytelling.

Director C. Kogonada, known for Columbus (2017) and After Yang (2021), previously earned critical acclaim for more intimate, concept-driven work. His pivot to a blockbuster-scale romance-laced fantasy has drawn attention for the disconnect between his distinct directorial voice and the film’s broader commercial aims. The reception of A Big Bold Beautiful Journey stands in contrast to the builder’s past successes and raises questions about the challenges of translating acclaimed indie sensibilities to a glossy, high-concept romance.

For Robbie, the movie marks her first project since 2023’s Barbie, which she starred in and produced through LuckyChap and which dominated domestic and global box office, tallying roughly $636.2 million in the U.S. and about $1.445 billion worldwide. The new release also represents a return to screens after the birth of her first child roughly a year ago, a period Robbie has used to focus on select projects while continuing to explore opportunities for future collaborations.

Robbie has described the script as “exquisite” and felt it carried a magical, original sense of romance. She told reporters that she hoped to tell a love story on screen and cheekily added that she would “obviously love to do a love story with Colin Farrell.” Farrell echoed the sentiment, saying that working with Robbie “was a dream from start to finish.” The couple’s chemistry has been widely noted in promotional materials, but the film’s reception indicates that chemistry alone could not rescue the project from a challenging critical and commercial landscape.

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey’s release comes as Robbie prepares to promote Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights, slated for cinemas in February next year. In the near term, the film’s UK performance underscores a broader industry narrative: star power and a high-profile pairing can attract attention, but audiences and critics alike are demanding more substance, sharper writing, and a resonant emotional through-line to justify a costly rom-com fantasy in a crowded marketplace. The film remains in limited release as a part of a fall slate that will continue to test the staying power of high-profile projects in the Culture & Entertainment calendar.

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey was released on September 19.