Daisy Edgar-Jones took on Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility and lost by one notch, fans say
The opening came in under forecast, but paying audiences were warmer than the critics. For once, the Thompson loyalists may have to argue their case instead of rolling their eyes.
Focus Features' Sense and Sensibility opened in 2,545 North American cinemas on 16 October 2026, and its first American audiences gave it an A- CinemaScore. Deadline's Friday estimate has the film at $3 million for the day and around $6 million for the weekend, a little under the $8 million it was expected to open to on Thursday. British audiences got there first: Georgia Oakley's film has been in UK cinemas since September, and it sits at 76% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
The number that started the argument isn't the box office. On r/boxoffice, the thread announcing the grade instantly produced a counterpoint: the 1995 Ang Lee film, fans insist, got a straight A. CinemaScore's archive wasn't reachable to confirm it, so treat that as fan lore with a scoreboard attached. One commenter took it as a verdict on the whole project:
"The 1995 film got an A. So, it's a downgrade in the hardcore fans' eyes. Bummer."
That comment is sitting at minus 15 votes.
The thread, to be fair, has spoken, and its verdict is kinder than the commenter's. The most upvoted replies call the grade solid and respectable for a second adaptation.
The version nobody was supposed to beat
Edgar-Jones plays Elinor Dashwood, the sister who keeps her feelings in a locked drawer. In 1995 that was Emma Thompson, who also wrote the screenplay and won an Oscar for it. Kate Winslet was Marianne, Alan Rickman was Colonel Brandon, and Hugh Grant stammered his way through Edward Ferrars. Variety's critic opened her review of the new film by calling Lee's "the Platonic ideal of the Jane Austen adaptation", before saying a word about Oakley's.
So here's who has to stand next to that lot:
- Elinor: Daisy Edgar-Jones, in the Thompson role
- Marianne: Esmé Creed-Miles, in the Winslet role
- Edward Ferrars: George MacKay, in the Grant role
- Colonel Brandon: Herbert Nordrum, in the Rickman role
- Willoughby: Frank Dillane, whom Variety calls "scene-stealing"
The reviews have been polite rather than rapturous. Variety found the film "oddly safe", with a seriousness of tone that "strips away some of the wit and comedy that makes Austen's work, well, Austenesque".
Which makes an A- from paying audiences more interesting, not less: the critics wanted Lee, the public apparently settled for Oakley.
Austen remakes usually lose six-nil
Ask anyone who grew up on Colin Firth's Pride and Prejudice what they think of the 2005 film. Keira Knightley got an Oscar nomination out of it and a devoted fanbase of her own, and two decades on, a good chunk of the Firth crowd still won't give it an inch. A reply in the same thread makes exactly that point:
"Most … P&P fans to this day won't admit the 2005 film is good. An A minus is a win, especially considering Sense and Sensibility is a bitch and a half to adapt well because the male lead doesn't actually appear for the majority of the book."
The book is as much of a problem as the competition. Edward is missing for most of it, so every Elinor spends the story pining for a man who isn't in the room.
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Thompson at least had the advantage of writing the scenes herself.
One notch below Emma Thompson, by the fans' own count, is closer than an Austen remake usually gets.
The 1995 film wasn't an opening-weekend phenomenon either. It started as a platform release and, per Deadline, legged its way to $43.4 million domestic. The new one went wide straight away, so that A- now has to do the job word of mouth did 30 years ago, against Street Fighter in the same multiplexes.
If it holds, the generation that met Edgar-Jones in Normal People gets its own Elinor, and the Thompson loyalists will have to argue their case instead of simply rolling their eyes. Losing by a minus sign is still losing. It's just the first time anyone has made it close.
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