Sense and Sensibility Sets an Austen Record as Daisy Edgar-Jones Leads a $7.25 Million Opening

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2026

Jane Austen just set a box-office record — 215 years after the novel was published. Georgia Oakley's new adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, starring Daisy Edgar-Jones as Elinor Dashwood, opened in the United States on October 16 and finished its first weekend with an estimated $7.25 million, according to Rentrak figures reported by MyNewsLA on Sunday. That is enough for only fifth place on a crowded weekend chart — and, as Deadline reported via ScreenRant, it is also the best domestic opening ever for a period-set Jane Austen film, not adjusted for inflation. For a literary adaptation made for about $25 million, that is exactly the kind of contradiction the specialty box office runs on.

The number moved in the right direction all weekend, which is usually the first sign of healthy word of mouth. Saturday morning projections, per Deadline via ScreenRant, had the film at $6.7 million for the three days — already a record for a period Austen adaptation, but a modest one. By Sunday, Rentrak's estimates had climbed to $7.25 million (rounded to $7.2 million in MyNewsLA's chart), from 2,545 theaters. Films aimed at older, book-reading audiences rarely spike on Friday night; they build through Saturday matinees and Sunday word of mouth, and this one's trajectory fits that pattern precisely.

A record with an asterisk — and a real achievement underneath it

The record needs its context stated plainly, because Austen adaptations have historically opened small and legged out. Ang Lee's beloved 1995 Sense and Sensibility — the Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet version — began with just $721,000 in a limited release before expanding its way to more than $43 million domestically over its full run. The 2005 Pride & Prejudice and the 2020 Emma followed the same platform pattern. Oakley's film, by contrast, opened wide enough to post a true opening-weekend number, and it beat every period Austen debut that came before it. The claim, as Deadline framed it and ScreenRant repeated, is specifically about period-set Austen films and is not adjusted for inflation — modern-set riffs like Clueless are a different category. Stated accurately, the record is real.

It also arrives with money already in the bank. The film had its world premiere at the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square in London on September 15 and opened in the United Kingdom on September 25, three weeks before its American debut. By the time it reached U.S. screens, it had already grossed $12.2 million worldwide, $6.7 million of that from the U.K. alone. Add the American opening and the worldwide total is pushing toward $20 million against a reported production budget of about $25 million — before the long, slow tail that Austen films are famous for has even begun.

The film itself: sisters first

Oakley, whose debut Blue Jean drew wide acclaim, directs from a screenplay by Diana Reid, and the adaptation — produced by Working Title Films with November Pictures and Kiddo Films, released in the U.S. by Focus Features and internationally by Universal — runs 132 minutes and stays firmly in period. Edgar-Jones plays the cautious, conscientious Elinor; Esmé Creed-Miles, of Prime Video's Hanna, plays her fiery younger sister Marianne; Caitríona Balfe is their widowed mother, Mrs. Dashwood. George MacKay plays Edward Ferrars, Frank Dillane the dashing and unreliable John Willoughby, and Herbert Nordrum Colonel Brandon, with Fiona Shaw as Mrs. Jennings — a performance more than one review has singled out as the film's scene-stealing turn.

The critical reception backs the box office. The film stands at 76% on Rotten Tomatoes across 96 critics with an average rating of 7 out of 10, holds a 71 on Metacritic, and earned an A- CinemaScore from opening-weekend audiences — the strongest audience grade of any of the weekend's major new releases. SlashFilm, in an essay arguing the film risked being overshadowed on a weekend dominated by Street Fighter, praised Oakley and Reid for embracing Austen's story rather than modernizing it, singled out the sisterly relationship between Elinor and Marianne as the film's center, and admired Arnaud Potier's cinematography and Francesca Di Mottola's production design. That is the profile — strong reviews, an A- from the people who actually bought tickets, an audience that skews toward repeat and group attendance — of a film built to play for weeks rather than spike for days.

Why fifth place is not failure

On the raw chart, the weekend belonged to spectacle: Street Fighter at No. 1 with $31 million, the Elizabeth Holmes documentary You Can See Everything at $15 million, Other Mommy at $8.35 million and Whalefall at $8 million. Finishing behind all four with $7.25 million might look like an also-ran result until you run the per-dollar math. Sense and Sensibility cost roughly $25 million to make — a third of Street Fighter's reported $82 million budget — and it has already recovered most of that figure worldwide in under a month. Its audience will not evaporate next weekend the way a fan-driven opening crowd can; Austen's audience buys tickets on the third weekend too, often at matinees, often in groups, often more than once.

There is a bigger story here about what travels. The same weekend that demonstrated the ceiling of nostalgia-driven video-game casting also demonstrated the floor of a 215-year-old novel with no explosions, no franchise and no sequel hook — and the floor turned out to be a record. Working Title, which also produced the 2005 Pride & Prejudice and the 2020 Emma, has spent two decades proving that Austen is one of the most durable brands in cinema; this weekend simply gave that argument its best opening number yet. Whether the film can follow the 1995 version's path from a strong opening to a $40-million-plus domestic run is the question for the weeks ahead. The record, though, is already in the books — and for once, the books are exactly where it belongs. Read Previously's full weekend coverage, including Street Fighter's $31 million win and Whalefall's difficult debut, and browse more titles in the catalog.