The Girl Next Door turns 20. The 21M teen comedy was a box office flop making 14.6M domestically and 30.4M worldwide but has gained a cult following over the years : r/boxoffice Skip to main content

Get the Reddit app

Scan this QR code to download the app now
Or check it out in the app stores
r/boxoffice icon
r/boxoffice icon
Go to boxoffice
r/boxoffice
A banner for the subreddit

A place to talk about the box office and the movie business, both domestically and internationally.


Members Online

The Girl Next Door turns 20. The 21M teen comedy was a box office flop making 14.6M domestically and 30.4M worldwide but has gained a cult following over the years

Throwback Tuesday
r/boxoffice - The Girl Next Door turns 20. The 21M teen comedy was a box office flop making 14.6M domestically and 30.4M worldwide but has gained a cult following over the years
Share
Sort by:
Best
Open comment sort options
u/AutoModerator avatar
Moderator Announcement Read More »
u/AlwaysBadIdeas avatar

"Goddammit Matt! I swear to God if you don't fuck her, I'll kill myself! Matt! Please! Please, Matt! Fuck her for me, FOR ME!!!"

Possibly the greatest bit of dialogue in human history.

More replies

Elisha Cuthbert man, one of the great underrated hotties of the 2000s. She was the thinking man's Mandy Moore

u/Quick599 avatar

Popular Mechanics for kids!

Legit had a crush on her since I was a kid because of that show.

More replies

I dunno, Mandy Moore seems more intellectual than Elisha Cuthbert to me.

u/GoddammitCricket avatar

Maybe now but this was Mandy Moore back then

By 2004, Mandy Moore had already went full brunette for a Walk to Remember and I don’t think it ever went back to 100% blonde ….and she was in Saved! In 2004. The next year, she was showing up on Entourage.

Sorry, Mandy Moore was the thinking man’s Mandy Moore at this time. LoL

u/GoddammitCricket avatar

All that time blurs together for me, I had no idea Candy came out in 1999!

more reply More replies
More replies
More replies
More replies
u/Elite_Hercules avatar

OMG yes! Even still super hot 20 years later in the Netflix show The Ranch.

She sure was

She sure was

She sure was

Brother had to say it thrice 🙏

More replies
More replies
u/ConsciousReason7709 avatar

The juice is worth the squeeze

‘I’m all wet, can I come in?’ Best line of the movie

Dude…

I know.

More replies

Doesn't Timothy Olyphant play a creep in this?

Perfectly

Dude can do anything.

More replies

Stole the show every time he was on screen

You mean should’ve won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for this role?

lol not even close

More replies
u/Obi-Wayne avatar

Between this and Go (film by Doug Lyman that lives rent free in my head for the Columbia logo intro to this day - I always hear this music whenever it plays lol) I think he was close to being type casted as a creeper in his early career.

More replies

Not mentioned in the comments yet, but Fox delayed this film multiple times. The reception from test screenings were through the roof, but they didn’t know how to market it. It was originally supposed to be released in March, but got pushed back to Easter weekend at the last minute as a counter programming play. It had multiple public sneak previews, but they couldn’t drum up any interest in the film.

Regarding R-rated comedies at that brief moment of time: Fox also released Club Dread, the anticipated follow-up to Super Troopers, two months earlier that was dead on arrival. It didn’t help that it released the same weekend as The Passion of the Christ. DreamWorks released EuroTrip shortly thereafter and it also died a quick death in theaters. PG-13 comedies during this time frame were doing well (Starsky and Hutch, Mean Girls, etc) and we were months away from the seismic shift that was about to happen with Anchorman.

u/WayneArnold1 avatar

I remember Passion killing everything in it's path. Except for the Dawn remake which was the first film to unseat it from it's #1 spot. Once upon a time, Zach Snyder made a good movie.

Ended up seeing Dawn twice during its opening weekend. 2004 was a solid year in film.

More replies
u/GoddammitCricket avatar

Damn 2004 was a crazy year for comedies. All that, plus stuff like Dodgeball, 13 Going On 30, Napoleon Dynamite, Team America, Harold & Kumar, Shaun of the Dead, Perfect Score, Saved!, Along Came Polly, etc

2004 might be the best year for comedy on film. Heavy hitters being released nearly on a weekly basis.

More replies

So dumb to release this movie on Easter weekend against Passion. It deserved a summer release date like American Pie, Something About Mary, etc. Fox really screwed up both the marketing and release, which is a complete shame. It’s still one of the smartest and funniest teen sex comedies of all time.

Dude I loved Club Dread too! Haha

More replies

Paul Dano was such a youngin’ in this film, and was billed like 6th in the cast, yet has had a far more successful career out of any of the actors.

Several years later would appear in a breakout role in Little Miss Sunshine. Then called in 2 weeks before production to star opposite Daniel-Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood. Then has gone on to work with Steve McQueen (12 Years A Slave), Steven Spielberg (Fabelmans), Rian Johnson (Looper), Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners), Bong Joon Ho (Okja), the Daniels (Swiss Army Man), and Matt Reeves (The Batman).

Made his own directorial debut with Wildlife. Received awards/nominations for Love and Mercy and Fabelmans (yet still no Oscar but he was damn near close).

What a career!

wait how the fuck didn't i know paul was in this movie lmao

He’s the third leg of the tripod!

I always remember this film as my intro to Paul Dano lol

u/WalnutsAnka avatar

Paul was also in The Sopranos as AJ’s friend

More replies
u/Dr__Crentist avatar

Don't forget he worked with Jon Favreau in Cowboys & Aliens.

u/Zeds-Dead-Baby avatar

And sopranos

More replies

Timothy Olyphant?

I mean, he’s big on tv but barely present in movies. His most high profile film would be the leading role in that terrible Hitman adaptation, starring in The Crazies remake from 2010 and his small cameo in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I enjoy him on Justified and Santa Clarita Diet but his film work leaves a little to be desired.

u/Hop_Hound avatar

How you gonna talk about Timothy Olyphant movies and leave out Perfect Getaway???

Interesting. The issue, for me at least, is it's arguable since the era of Prestige TV that film just isn't doing it anymore.

Many famous film actors moved towards TV during this era, including, for example, Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep and Reese Witherspoon (Big Little Lies), Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson (True Detective), Harrison Ford (1923), or Kevin Costner (Yellowstone).

One could argue Justified and Deadwood are some of those shows emblematic of the era, which Olyphant was a part of, or the face of.

I don't think many people would go see a movie just because Paul Dano is in it and vice versa, but also nobody goes to see Timothy Olyphant in a movie.

But one could argue that Olyphant is more of a household name than Dano, given that Dano is a character actor and Olyphant is on their screen all the time as the face of Justified.

More replies
More replies
u/WalnutsAnka avatar

Paulie Dano was in The Sopranos. That rhymed. Intentionally.

More replies

Cult member here. Hard not to fall in love with Elisha Cuthbert in this movie.

I'm still in love with her

love her on “Happy Endings” - i rewatch that show every now and then. so goooood

More replies

One of my comfort movies <3 I love the scene when he was drugged before his speech

20 mil is a pretty big budget for the time - about 33mil now - and for a comedy like this, seems pretty hefty. But then again Anybody But You, a similar film, was made on 25mil just last year

u/Bluest_waters avatar

This is way back in the day when Hollywood still made mid bugdet or even high budget comedies. Alas those days are no more.

u/-s-u-n-s-e-t- avatar

There's still plenty of comedies. They are just a different flavor - usually with some action and spectacle inserted, so that people have a reason to go see it in the cinema instead of waiting for streaming.

Big chunk of the superhero stuff, especially most of Marvel, leaned very heavily on the comedy. There's barely any scene (even the supposed serious ones) that doesn't have a joke in it, or at least end up with a quip.

Then there's stuff like the DnD movie, or the Jumanji movies. There's also Ghostbusters stuff, the latest one had a budget of ~100mil. There's also the occasional Rom-com like Anyone But You.

More replies
u/Cannaewulnaewidnae avatar

I remember listening to the DVD commentary for an unremarkable suburban drama around this time, where the director explained they had a fire truck on set to wet-down the roads before each take, so the asphalt read as black

I remember thinking 'this can't last'

More replies
u/Kac03032012 avatar

Shout out Christopher Marquette. Had quite the career early with roles in The Tic Code, and Disney's Up, Up and Away.

But was hilarious in The Girl Next Door, and the shockingly underrated Just Friends.

u/COtheLegend avatar

Just Friends rules! In my family, it's become a Christmas tradition!

u/Kac03032012 avatar

Ours as well. “What the bar ran out of curly fries?”

More replies
More replies
u/thetennisgod avatar

A lot more sincere movie with depth than the cover would suggest. Very funny coming of age story.

I was 19 when this came out so it was a very formative movie for me. Everyone I know around my age is aware of this movie and enjoyed it.

It was so crazy for us Canadians to see Elisha go from Popular Mechanics for Kids (with Jay Baruchel) to 24 to this and Old School!

u/GulliasTurtle avatar

Elisha Cuthbert is such a gifted comedy actress who has never really gotten her due. She's misused here but so funny on Happy Endings.

Saw it in my teenage years, was a dream come true for me.

u/PiratedTVPro avatar

Cult following? No.

Horny teen following? …

Why not both?

This, a lot like a film that came out two months earlier (EuroTrip), found a second life on DVD.

More replies
u/NGGKroze avatar

That movie... Daymn, Childhood crush of all the crushes

Tim olyphant was amazing in this

u/standdownplease avatar

The juice is worth the squeeze on this one.

I remember her legendary interview with Derrick Whipple and Jim Heckler about this film. It was totally off the hook. 🤟

The best part about this movie is that it is in NO WAY a rip off of Risky Business.

u/captainseas avatar

Did the DVD money days pretty much make this kind of movie impossible to not turn a profit eventually?

u/Zubi_Q avatar

Adored this film growing up! Definitely a film made for teeengers, haha

u/Luna920 avatar

I’m surprised that was a flop. I remember everyone talking about it and thinking it was a very good teen comedy.

[deleted]
[deleted]

Comment deleted by user

Is that the one a couple miles from the U of I campus/Assembly Hall? If so I’ve been there and pretty sure a dude I know got herpes in Champaign.

Also I saw Prince there in 2004 ironically. Good year.

u/Cydyan2 avatar

Why do I feel like you’re talking about yourself

u/WayneArnold1 avatar

I'm assuming this was one of those movies that recouped their losses through DVD sales. Now that the home media market is dead, you're not gonna see raunchy comedies with as much frequency(so much terrible American Pie clones were released straight to DVD back then).

I thought Emile Hirsch was doing Danger Beach

Such a long road, you know

Emile Hirsch and films with cult followings, name a better combo

[deleted]
[deleted]

Comment deleted by user

It’s a solid teen comedy

u/FruityMagician avatar

Bit rich coming from a WWE fan, lol.

Edited

Much be a pretty small cult cause I've never even heard of this movie, nor heard anyone ever talk about it.

Don't know why this got down voted was just making an observation

It’s a decent comedy but not really something I’d imagine people that weren’t around at the time would find.

I’d say if it released in a different year it might be more remembered, 2004 was an insane year for comedy movies a large chunk of the memorable 2000s comedies released in 04

More replies