Entertainment

Jimmy Stewart’s New Biopic Struggles at the Box Office Despite 96% Audience Score

Nairavoice · Nov 10, 2026 · 6 min read

He has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal of introducing audiences to a whole new world of cinema.

This past weekend coincidentally saw two international movies debut in the top five at the domestic box office, while two films about filmmaking claimed lower spots on the leaderboard. The two international movies — Japan’s Godzilla Minus Zero and India’s Ramayana: Rise of a Legend — bookended the top-five list. Meanwhile, the two films about filmmaking delivered vastly different performances. I Play Rocky, the inspirational drama about Sylvester Stallone‘s rags-to-riches story, found success in limited release, while a biopic of another Hollywood icon delivered a lukewarm debut.

I Play Rocky is being viewed as an Oscar contender thanks to incredible reviews. Starring Anthony Ippolito as Stallone, the film holds a “Certified Fresh” 89% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. The site’s consensus reads, “A feel-good celebration of the underdog who created one of cinema’s greatest underdogs, I Play Rocky may not be as powerful as the original article but packs considerable punch thanks to Anthony Ippolito’s uncanny embodiment of Sly Stallone.” The movie grossed nearly $350,000 from just seven locations, for an incredible per-theater average of nearly $50,000.

Meanwhile, a biopic of the legendary Jimmy Stewart underperformed in nearly 1,500 theaters nationwide, debuting outside the top 10. Titled Jimmy, the movie holds a 63% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, but the film’s audience score on the aggregator website is sitting at a near-perfect 96%. While this may not do much for the film during its box-office run, it will certainly come in handy when the movie lands on the PVOD market.

Four icons and four completely different ways of walking into trouble.
This is the one you would have been out there, why it fits, and what it would have cost you.

You have never explained yourself and you have never needed to,
because people work out fairly quickly that you are the most capable person in the room
without you ever having to mention it.

Eastwood built the character out of everything he refused to do, stripping away the
backstory, the speeches and every bit of reassurance until only the competence was left.
You keep your own counsel, and while other people occasionally find that unnerving, you
have never felt any real need to fix it for them.
The Dollars films work because he genuinely is in it for himself right up until the
moment he is not, and he never explains that part either.
You would be gone before anybody got a chance to thank you.

You are the funniest person in most rooms and the most loyal
person in all of them, and you would be genuinely insulted if somebody suggested those two
things were in any tension.

Doc has no real reason to be in this fight beyond the fact that his friend is in it,
which is the only reason he has ever needed for anything.
You lead with wit, and it does a very effective job of hiding how seriously you take the
handful of people you actually care about.
Val Kilmer’s performance is the most quoted in the entire genre because the jokes keep
getting sharper as the situation gets worse.
You would spend everything you had on this and still describe it as a good week.

You never wanted this job, and you took it anyway because the
alternative was standing there watching somebody less careful do it badly, which is the most
Western reason there has ever been.

Earp is the reluctant authority figure, a man who came to town specifically to be left
alone and somehow ended up answerable for all of it.
You are protective by instinct, so when something goes wrong your first thought is who
is exposed rather than who is to blame.
These films understand that keeping order costs far more than breaking it, and that the
person holding the line almost never gets thanked.
You would do the whole thing again, and you would complain about it the entire time.

Nobody has ever successfully talked you out of something you had
already decided was right, and a long line of grown adults has found that out the hard way.

Mattie is the most relentless character in the Western canon and she manages it through
argument, paperwork and flat refusal rather than a fast draw.
You have no patience for being managed, so you negotiate, you check the details and you
turn up exactly when you said you would.
True Grit is the rare Western where the moral centre is the youngest person on screen
and every adult around her has to catch up.
You would get what you came for, and the film is honest about what that takes out of
you.

Here’s How Much ‘Jimmy’ Grossed at the Box Office

Image via Burns & Co.; 2026 JIMMY The Movie LLC, All Rights Reserved.
Image via Burns & Co.; 2026 JIMMY The Movie LLC, All Rights Reserved.
Image via Burns & Co.; 2026 JIMMY The Movie LLC, All Rights Reserved.
Image via Burns & Co.; 2026 JIMMY The Movie LLC, All Rights Reserved.
Image via Burns & Co.; 2026 JIMMY The Movie LLC, All Rights Reserved.

Image via Burns & Co.; 2026 JIMMY The Movie LLC, All Rights Reserved.
Image via Burns & Co.; 2026 JIMMY The Movie LLC, All Rights Reserved.
Image via Burns & Co.; 2026 JIMMY The Movie LLC, All Rights Reserved.
Image via Burns & Co.; 2026 JIMMY The Movie LLC, All Rights Reserved.
Image via Burns & Co.; 2026 JIMMY The Movie LLC, All Rights Reserved.

However, that’s a while away. Jimmy grossed only around $2 million in its first three days, falling short of the $6 million earned by fellow new release Wild Horse Nine, which is in 400 fewer theaters. The domestic box-office leaderboard was topped by Godzilla Minus Zero, which grossed roughly $32 million over the weekend.

Jimmy stars Riverdale alum KJ Apa as the Hollywood icon, who headlined classics such as Vertigo, It’s a Wonderful Life, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, among others. The movie also features Jason Alexander, Neal McDonough, and Rob Riggle. Produced on a reported budget of $14 million, Jimmy focuses on Stewart’s life and career when, as an Oscar winner, he enlisted in the army to fight in World War II and returned to America to star in It’s a Wonderful Life. Another biopic aimed at a similar audience — Hershey — will be released theatrically next week.