A Complete Unknown has pᴀssed a major milestone, breaking a box office record for star Timothée Chalamet. Chalamet plays folk icon Bob Dylan in the music biopic, which was directed by Walk the Line‘s James Mangold and also stars Edward Norton as Pete Seeger, Elle Fanning as the lightly fictionalized Sylvie Russo, Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash, and Scoot McNairy as Woody Guthrie. The theatrical release of A Complete Unknown kicked off on Christmas Day in 2024, becoming the second highest-grossing debut movie that weekend behind Nosferatu.

Per ᴅᴇᴀᴅline, as of Sunday morning, A Complete Unknown is projected to add a 3-day total of $5 million by the end of its third weekend in domestic theaters. In addition to seeing the movie land at No. 7 on the domestic chart for the weekend, this will bring its cumulative gross to $50.8 million. This marks the first time that a Timothée Chalamet-led non-blockbuster movie has pᴀssed the $50 million milestone. His previous movies to gross more than $50 million are Dune, Dune: Part Two, and Wonka.

Chalamet also held supporting roles in the movies Interstellar, Little Women, and Lady Bird, which all grossed over $50 million. In addition to making history for Chalamet-led projects, A Complete Unknown is only the 13th music biopic to ever gross more than $50 million at the domestic box office. The Bob Dylan movie has not opened in international markets at the time of writing.

What This Means For A Complete Unknown

Chalamet’s Star Continues To Rise

This milestone for the Complete Unknown star sees him beating the record previously set by his breakout role in Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name, which grossed $43.1 million in theaters. Below, see a breakdown of the performance of every non-blockbuster movie featuring Chalamet as a lead or co-lead that made more than $1 million in theaters:

This shows that Timothée Chalamet movies outside of his IP blockbusters still have the potential to be major players in the theatrical space. The fact that his star is continuing to rise could prove to be very beneficial for his next movie, which is A24’s Marty Supreme, directed by Josh Safdie. The studio has been experimenting with larger budgets, and the table tennis drama is their most expensive outing yet with a $70 million price tag, so it will need to perform even better than A Complete Unknown just to break even.

Our Take On The Complete Unknown Milestone

It Still Has A Way To Go

While this milestone is significant, A Complete Unknown still has yet to break even in theaters. The movie’s budget is reportedly somewhere between $50 and $70 million, which likely places its break-even point somewhere around $125 million or more, a milestone that its current $70 million projections won’t reach. However, the movie’s status as an awards season contender, particularly with multiple major nominations for Chalamet and a possible Oscar nomination impending, could help offset its potential losses by increasing the status of the star as well as the studios and filmmakers involved.

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Source: ᴅᴇᴀᴅline