r/boxoffice • u/chanma50 Best of 2019 Winner • Jan 19 '25
Domestic Paramount's BETTER MAN was an extinction-level event in its 2nd weekend, dropping a whopping -76% w/ just $255k, $1.8M total. This will likely go down as the lowest-grossing, wide studio release of 2025...
https://x.com/ERCboxoffice/status/1881013947526226016?t=JWxhq4eskqF88W_JotOs4w&s=19593
u/littlelordfROY WB Jan 19 '25
Lowest grossing movie to feature music of robbie Williams
Still in the top 10 highest grossing movies to feature his music. In a club with Cars 2
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u/MightySilverWolf Jan 19 '25
What are the other movies on that list? I know the first Johnny English is on it.
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u/MagicBez Jan 19 '25 edited Jan 19 '25
Finding Nemo surely a big one
Also I'm pretty sure he's on the first two Bridget Jones films as well
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u/neonharvest Jan 20 '25
The funny thing is Robbie Williams was never involved with Bond, but the only song I know him from is when he sampled You Only Live Twice for Millennium. I have zero knowledge of anything else he has done.
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u/MICHAELSD01 Jan 20 '25
I still find it interesting how Robbie Williams is an A-list, well-recognized name in the U.K. whereas in the U.S. it’s less likely he would even be recognized—that’s probably one reason the box office performance is so abysmal.
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u/Lone_Soldier Jan 20 '25 edited Jan 20 '25
Even then, I didn't even know it was based off an actual artist. When I originally saw the trailer and it said based on true events, I thought it was straight up satire since there's a monkey singing in it lol
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u/Then_North_6347 Jan 20 '25
Omg I thought it was satire too! Like supposed to be a modern greatest showman but with a singing monkey instead!
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u/Ok_Run_8184 Jan 20 '25
Same, I had no idea it was about a real person until a few days ago. I thought it was a satire making fun of musicals or something
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u/Crotean Jan 20 '25
The made a fake biopic starting a cg monkey who sings. No one wanted this movie, even if they know who Robbie Williams is. The pile of cocaine they must have gone through to come up with this pitch would have made Tony Montana jealous.
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u/tredders90 Jan 20 '25
I wouldnt say A-list in the UK now to be honest, he will have been massive a few decades ago but today I barely hear anything about him. Every now and then he'll be on a gossip magazine cover about how he's conquered his demons again, but he doesn't get radio play etc.
He's probably recognised among the 30-50ish demo but I can't imagine he cuts through for people much younger than that, he'd fallen off by that point.
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u/Skysflies Jan 20 '25
He's definitely semi-known in the 20-30 bracket.
Our parents listened to him, during what is our formative years, like he did Knebworth at the peak of his powers 22 years ago this September .
Known and loved are obviously two different things but I don't like Freddie Mercury either ( due to my age) and I and many of our age went to see that movie too
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u/_lippykid Jan 20 '25
There’s ten? All I got was:
• Bridget Jones’s Diary: “Have You Met Miss Jones?” • Finding Nemo: “Beyond the Sea” • Johnny English: “A Man for All Seasons” • A Knight’s Tale: “We Are the Champions” (with Queen) • De-Lovely: “It’s De-Lovely” • Iron Man 3: “Let’s Go All the Way” (with The Wondergirls and Ashley Hamilton) • Better Man: Various14
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u/ricksed Legendary Jan 19 '25
Sonic is really doing a lot of carrying for Paramount right now.
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u/lightsongtheold Jan 19 '25
Gladiator 2 and Better Man absolutely wiped out those Sonic profits before Paramount had to decide what to spend them on!
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u/ricksed Legendary Jan 20 '25
Only reasonable solution is to greenlight more Sonic films to bring those profits back /hj
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u/RevolutionaryOwlz Jan 20 '25
Shadow spinoff made by just putting a CGI hedgehog over Keanu in John Wick.
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u/Remarkable_Ship_4673 Jan 19 '25
Gladiator 2 didn't do well? That's sad
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u/DoctorDickedDown Jan 19 '25
It did do well, it's just that its budget got inflated due to shooting locations/strikes so it made it very hard to break even.
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u/Remarkable_Ship_4673 Jan 19 '25
What was the budget?
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u/Adam87 Paramount Jan 19 '25
$200+ million. Maybe tax breaks bring it under but the marketing was like $100+ million so they did lose money on it.
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u/phatelectribe Jan 20 '25
It’s probably broken even now. $200m budget and it’s taken $458m. With way streaming and box sets it’ll make a modest profit.
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u/Live_Angle4621 Jan 20 '25
I still would not say it wiped out profits of other films. It’s the type of coo that actually would get profits from secondary markets and not that far from being fine in theatres alone.
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u/CinemaFan344 Universal Jan 19 '25
And for our lowest-end predictions, $2mil would be its domestic opening weekend. It's uncertain if it can even make that amount.
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u/MysteriousHat14 Jan 19 '25
I mean, this movie bombing in America is an absolute non story. The interesting thing is that it doesn't seem to be doing well overseas either.
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u/pobenschain Jan 19 '25
It was always going to bomb in America, but there’s a bomb and there’s an embarrassment and I think this is the latter.
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u/magikarpcatcher Jan 19 '25
Yet Paramount paid $25M for the distribution rights for some reason.
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u/StuHardy Jan 19 '25
They were probably hoping for good word-of-mouth, and then get a big share of new subscribers to Paramount+.
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u/DatTomahawk Jan 19 '25
For the monkey movie? No wonder they got bought out
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u/Skysflies Jan 20 '25
Its genuinely good though and there's a core audience for musicals that normally turn up( which is part of why that Regent street clip is absolutely everywhere)
It bombing in the US isn't a surprise but it is a bit of a shame it's not really getting even a chance.
Paramount are going to need it to do extremely well on streaming, which I feel like it will eventually because it's one of those movies people are like it's free, and it's good, give it a chance things
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u/Optimism_Deficit Jan 19 '25
I think he has a slightly peculiar level of fame.
He's definitely a household name in the UK and a few other countries, but he's not a universally recognised global megastar.
His career sort of peaked in the late 90s and 00s. He can still pull in big crowds for his tours and gets booked to play big public events, where he invariably sings a few of his hits from 20 or so years ago. His career isn't doing badly, but he's not really in the public consciousness.
Other than this movie and the promotional tour for it, the most recent thing I can remember him doing is a cat food commercial.
I guess even in the UK, not many people felt they needed to see a movie of his life.
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u/uberduger Jan 19 '25
He can still pull in big crowds for his tours and gets booked to play big public events, where he invariably sings a few of his hits from 20 or so years ago. His career isn't doing badly, but he's not really in the public consciousness.
I guess even in the UK, not many people felt they needed to see a movie of his life.
I'd have genuinely been more likely to see a hypothetical 90-12 minute long gig of his in a cinema, like Taylor Swift's Eras tour release, than I would this.
I'll totally watch this on TV one day but I don't care about him enough to see a biography, and the fact it's got a monkey as the lead role just makes me confused, not particularly more intrigued.
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u/SnooDonkeys5917 Jan 19 '25
I agree and there’s a documentary already out on Netflix about him, why they need this as well...
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u/Fit-Refrigerator-796 Jan 19 '25 edited Jan 19 '25
My hypothesis is that despite being huge in his time he just doesn't have the public affection comparatively big music stars from the decades before him still have. Mainstream music just seemed to matter less and provoked less passion in 00s compared to the 60s-80s in the UK. It was the height of tabloid celebrity culture (Williams was a big part of that) and disposability. Even in rock and what we call indie bands tended to turn up sell a lot of records to casual buyers then fade without developing a strong fandom or much cultural impact.
TLDR- I just don't think there's a lot of nostalgia for the era when Robbie was king in UK music. Stars of that era had less mystery and were covered much more flippantly and were thus less revered. Despite Robbie being a great show man with a solid catalogue of songs.
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u/mg10pp DreamWorks Jan 19 '25
I perfectly agree with you and that's the main thing I was thinking when I heard about the movie (well, apart from the monkey)
He just doesn't seem like the kind of singer who can have a movie about him, and in any case certainly not now. That's like making a movie about Justin Timberlake in around 10 years from now assuming he doesn't have any new success in the meantime
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u/mutesa1 Marvel Studios Jan 20 '25
Nah, Timberlake is far too big lol - he could completely disappear for the next decade and a movie about him would still do well, would probably revive his career if anything. Even outside of his actual music - *NSYNC, the drama with Britney Spears, the Janet Jackson Super Bowl debacle, and the Social Network will keep him in the public consciousness for a long time
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u/Darkzapphire Jan 20 '25
I agree.
Im biased since im a huge fan of his, but he is a phenomenal artist.
Im not touching his ability to dance, sing, write and so on, or his tours, but other than that, he also appeared multiple times along with the lonely island, done stuff with fallon (whether you like him or not), actor in movies, soundtracks for a franchise (trolls) and so on
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u/Optimism_Deficit Jan 19 '25
It's a good point. If you've seen a lot of someone's life play out in the newspapers during your own lifetime, then it kind of kills a lot of the mystery around them.
There's also the fact that a lot of biopics are made after the subject has died, when there's nostalgia for them.
With Robbie, he's still kicking around doing gigs and popping up at charity events to sing Let Me Entertain You for the millionth time. Anyone who wants to watch him can go and do it.
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u/KTDWD24601 Jan 24 '25
I agree a huge appeal of the biopic genre is about connecting to an artist you cannot see in person any more.
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u/ResearchBot15 Jan 20 '25
It’s funny because the trailer literally opens with him saying “I’m Robbie Williams, one of the biggest pop stars in the world” and I swear half the theater immediately took out their phones to google him😂
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u/TimeToBond Jan 20 '25
“No no no. The fictional character’s name must be Robbie Williams.”
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u/_lippykid Jan 20 '25
That in itself is a pretty big marketing mishap. The whole story is about rags to riches, and to kickoff the trailer with “I’m a fucking living legend” was totally wrong. Should have started off outlining his humble upbringing, and built up to him overcoming the odds to becoming a huge star. Like a Billy Elliot type angle- that way, people knowing (or not knowing) Robbie wouldn’t have mattered, as the story is worth watching all on its own
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u/ResearchBot15 Jan 20 '25
That would’ve worked well…but then how do you explain the monkey of it all? I’m guessing they leaned into the “celebrity” factor to try to make the monkey thing work, instead neither ended up being successful
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u/tellmort-yourmove Jan 20 '25
I feel like this is the main thing. Him being an ape is a choice. Why?? WTF were they thinking? Maybe I would see this movie without the ape angle. With it, hard pass.
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u/Skysflies Jan 20 '25
Its actually explained quite well in the movie, and honestly you barely notice it anyway once it's going, the problem is, you have to have committed yourself to seeing the movie to get there and that's obviously not worked well with the general public
Essentially Robbie always saw himself as a monkey, and it's part of where his demons come from
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u/tellmort-yourmove Jan 20 '25
That does help. I’ve seen Robbie in Graham Norton so I’m slightly aware of his playboy status and the first question I had was does this ape have sex with humans. That’s so weird. And gross. And I think on a different post about this movie someone said yup. Ew.
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u/FacelessBraavosi Jan 20 '25
Thankfully no-one in the movie IIRC even comments on him being an ape, in the way that e.g. obviously everyone comments on Elphaba in Wicked being green. So even in the fictional world of the movie this is just "how he sees himself" rather than "he's actually an ape"
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u/Skysflies Jan 20 '25
Yeah there's one handjob scene which is slightly odd, if you've not settled into the movie yet but with that sole exception I can't think of anything and genuinely the movie does a very good job if you let it at making you forget it's a monkey
Like I didn't even think about it pretty much after the first 5 mins
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u/PopCultureWeekly Jan 19 '25
That’s being a bit disingenuous with his level of fame in the UK. Besides being one of the biggest selling artists of all time there, in 2022 he broke the record for having the most #1 albums with his latest release.
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u/Optimism_Deficit Jan 19 '25
I had a quick Google, and the only thing I think he released in 2022 was a 'greatest hits' style compilation album that was primarily tracks from the late 90s and early 00s, which is when I asserted that his career had peaked. I feel that actually kind of supports my point.
I'm not saying he doesn't have his fans, and I'm not saying that he's not been very successful, but he's not as popular as he once was.
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u/PopCultureWeekly Jan 20 '25
The album was a new recording of him doing a bunch of his hits, so sort of.
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u/fayemoonlight Jan 19 '25
That’s more to do with him having a bunch of diehard fans who loved him in his glory days. As a woman in her mid-20’s, he hasn’t got any appeal to me whatsoever. I just find him annoying and many of my peers feel the same way. His songs just don’t hold up well. They’re mediocre and he hasn’t got anything else to offer
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u/i_sesh_better Jan 20 '25
I’d seen a few ads for this movie, seen people mention Robbie Williams’s music being in the movie, but had absolutely no idea it was about him.
I thought this was a kids movie in adult style like Sing, I thought it was just about a singing monkey. How didn’t they get the biographical part over to me haha?
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u/CoreyH2P Jan 20 '25
An American comp I’ve kinda thought about is Alanis Morisette. Was huge a few decades ago, still around (she performed on our big New Years Eve show this year), but not a big enough star to get people to care about a biopic.
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Jan 19 '25
You could make this argument about many films, although I have never seen someone make it before.
We usually measure film's financial success regardless of the subject matter's fame; they spent a lot of money on this movie, it is bombing - that is a story.
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u/Alternative_Bite_779 Jan 19 '25
It's bombed in Australia too.
Everyone is watching all the kids movies that are currently out.
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u/ParanoidPragmatist Jan 19 '25
I'm Irish and grew up hearing his music.
His claim to fame for my generation was his music video where he is stripping and then once he is out clothes he starts ripping off his flesh and muscles until he is just a dancing skeleton. I can't remember which song it was and can't be bothered to look it up, maybe it was Rock DJ.
You had to try and stay up until after the watershed to see the full video.
But the more I grew up I found him more...I dont know...sleazy I guess is the word.
Even on British television I never heard him spoken about in a positive way.
And I have literally no desire to watch a movie about him or his music, i dont know anyone else that does either.
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u/popculturerss A24 Jan 19 '25
That was in fact the Rock DJ video. I was a child, I saw it, it scared the fuck out of me and I was confused. Still think the song is a banger though.
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u/popculturerss A24 Jan 19 '25
That is a suprise. I always thought this was gonna be something that just plays better internationally. I know who he is, questioned why anyone spent money on this high concept idea for someone of his status (with respect to him and his fans) but always thought because he's so big overseas that it'll be making it's money back from there.
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u/ChickenBrachiosaurus Jan 20 '25
Europeans when an American celebrity "isn't" famous (they actually are but they won't admit it) in Europe:
- Oh my gosh Americans are so uncultured and ignorant and dumb hur hur US defaultism stop assuming the world revolves whatever yada yada bubble tea
Also Europeans (especially brits) when Americans genuinely don't give a flying fuck about a their own celebrities:
- Oh my gosh Americans are so uncultured and ignorant and dumb hur hur US defaultism stop assuming the world revolves whatever yada yada bubble tea
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u/nicehouseenjoyer Jan 20 '25
Weird given he was a huge global1 superstar.
1 Global meaning UK/Ireland + Australia, maybe Belgium.
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u/BroadwayCatDad Jan 19 '25
A movie about how badly this movie bombed would probably make more at the box office.
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u/jherin1 Jan 20 '25
The
DisasterFlop Artist3
u/Fuck_auto_tabs Jan 20 '25
Robbie Williams acting like Tommy Wisseu would be fucking hilarious.
“I have to be monkey, no one will see the movie if I’m not primate, Mahk!”
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u/Quake_Guy Jan 19 '25
Can't even make back 10% of the distribution fee, that has to be a record.
Maybe only the guy that paid to distribute Yentyl in Iran did worse.
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u/xx4xx Jan 20 '25
WOW. A movie about a singing chimp telling the tale of an English music star who hasn't done shit in a decade and is a no name in USA totally bombs in the USA box office.
No exec saw this coming? Crazy
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u/air3-4 Jan 21 '25
If you posted this a month ago you’d have 40 replies telling you how popular and still relevant Robbie Williams is to this day because he’s on the radio somewhere in the world. And then you’d be told “Americans are the only ones not looking forward to this”.
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u/Left_Connection_8476 Jan 23 '25
Sounds like a PR/marketing plan; invade social media with positive comments!
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u/Toddison_McCray Jan 24 '25
People talk about how he’s popular in the UK still. He really isn’t. He’s popular with a really niche crowd of his fans who listened to his music in the 90’s and early 2000’s. It’s like Paramount making a movie biopic about any of the other middle of the pack pop artists at the time. It would probably flop too
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u/SawyerBlackwood1986 Jan 19 '25
Honestly 2 hours of unedited footage of a real monkey would’ve grossed more than this.
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u/LegoC97 Jan 19 '25
In 2011, Disney released a nature documentary in theaters called Chimpanzee, narrated by Tim Allen.
It grossed $35 million.
So point in case to your comment, yeah, you’re pretty much right lol
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u/DoctorDickedDown Jan 19 '25
Those Earth Day docs that Disney released every year were always a nice pleasure to see on the big screen
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u/nicehouseenjoyer Jan 20 '25 edited Jan 21 '25
An underrated thing about Disney+ is how much great nature doc content it has due to the National Geographic addition. They have a great series on American National Parks narrated by Garth Brooks that is really excellent but seems pretty unknown.
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u/Hoopy223 Jan 19 '25
If it was a 100% animal cast
Like the studio/corporate execs could be pigs and the lawyers are rats type of thing
A 2.0 version of that Feebles movie
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u/Parmesan_Pirate119 Jan 19 '25
I saw this Wednesday. The guy who scanned my ticket said it was their best selling film that day… there was one other person in the auditorium. I had seen another film with like 15 people right before. Idk what he was thinking lol
Great film though, shame it’s bombing hard.
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u/MisoTahini Jan 19 '25
I have heard good things about this movie but the choice to have the lead be a chimpanzee left the trailer-watching prospective audience just confused.
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u/JustAnotherRye89 Jan 24 '25
I honestly did not realize that it was a biopic where they used a chimp to play the person. I thought it was just some dumbass movie about a chimp that sings.
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u/ImpressiveBridge851 Jan 19 '25
You made a monkey out of me.
With all your wicked lies. To be tortured by you.
A life I now abhor.
Until I said no- See, I don't even know who Robbie Williams is. Those were lyrics of a Disturbed song.
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u/kango234 Jan 20 '25
I appreciate that he was self aware enough to know he needed a gimmick to get international interest, but he wasn't self aware enough to realize $100 million is too much for a biopic of any artist, not even Elvis cost that much. Honestly a full on animated movie might have made more sense.
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u/Skyblacker Jan 22 '25
Another Redditor speculated that the movie might be a vehicle for money laundering. That would explain the high amount of "executive producers" in the credits.
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u/cosy_ghost Jan 19 '25
The fact I've seen multiple theatres and news headlines describe this as a "Robin Williams biopic" has me convinced a Paramount executive got them mixed up and signed the contract.
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u/Pride_Before_Fall Jan 19 '25
Kind of a shame, it's a pretty decent film.
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u/Acceptable_Candy1538 Jan 20 '25
I thought it was kinda shit. One of the issues with Robbie Williams is that he lived an incredibly unremarkable life for someone who became rich and famous
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u/Background_Being_490 Jan 22 '25
This is my thing with Robbie Williams. He alludes to his misery and crazy life without actually outlining any details as to why it was crazy or what his misery exactly was. He just states it like it's self evident. I'm not saying he should diagnose his condition to me or anyone but it's all very vague and textbook 'tortured artist on the comedown from fame'. The reviews of the movie do seem generally positive but as an Irish man living in America, he is still hugely famous there with my generation and above. But equally not enough of the movie going audience to make this even a success there. As for in the states, they have no idea who he is. I was shocked that this even got a release in America.
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u/d00mm4r1n3 Jan 20 '25
Even British people didn't turn out for this one, it's doing worse than Bob Marley: One Love.
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u/mtjansen Jan 20 '25
They spent $110 million on a random singer biopic but as a CGI monkey. 🙈
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u/Moosemeateors Jan 20 '25
The monkey kills it for me. Especially cause it’s not great cgi.
I like biopics and this doesn’t do it for me.
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u/mercurywaxing Jan 19 '25
It's pretty critically acclaimed. A good amount of people who see it that genuinely like it. I have a feeling this will do great on streaming, at least.
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u/lightsongtheold Jan 19 '25
It might be a stretch to say “a good amount of people” watched this one! As for streaming? All the data tells us that if you flop in theatres then 99% of the time you flop just as hard on streaming or DVD.
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u/MisterJ_1385 Jan 20 '25
They said “a good amount of people who saw it”
Meaning if only 10 people saw it, and 8 said they liked it, that would count.
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u/Acceptable_Candy1538 Jan 20 '25
I’m one of the two who didn’t like it, my girlfriend was other one
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u/overthinking_person_ Jan 20 '25
There are many examples of the opposite, office space, boondock saints, just off the top of my head right now
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u/daddylonglez Jan 28 '25
I absolutely loved it. Pre-ordered the Blu-ray as soon as I got home from the cinema. And I NEVER buy physical media anymore. This one is just special.
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u/pmorter3 Jan 19 '25
marketing budget went crazy too, i see ads for this films nonstop, everywhere! makes me want to watch it even less than i already do lmao
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u/mrmonster459 Jan 19 '25
This was truly a mind blowing level of stupid from the beginning.
With a $110 million budget, this movie needed to do Elvis numbers to make a profit. And one is about one of the most famous singers of all time, the other is about...who the heck is this guy again?
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u/theangryfurlong Jan 23 '25
I saw the trailer and couldn't make heads nor tails of what the heck it was about.
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u/AzulMage2020 Jan 20 '25
Oh man....now Im worried about that movie starring Bono as a giraffe.....
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u/Acceptable_Shine_738 Netflix Jan 19 '25
They would’ve saved some money if they didn’t make Robbie Williams a CGI monkey
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u/Suchgallbladder Jan 19 '25
But there in lies the problem. If he wasn’t a CGI monkey Robbie Williams wouldn’t have starred in the film. The CGI monkey was just a big ploy so that Robbie could star in his own biopic.
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u/uberduger Jan 19 '25
Wait, so he did the voice?
Not sure why they used someone else for the singing then. Surely they'd have had enough material between outtakes, live versions, and AI-modded versions of him singing now, to be able to have HIM sing the songs of the film (as they obviously wouldn't use the recordings everyone knows, for fear of boring people).
All very strange to me!
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u/urkermannenkoor Jan 19 '25
Wait, so he did the voice?
No. He only did some narration at the start and end of the movie. The chimp was purely done by the actor. That person is just wrong.
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u/TB1289 Jan 19 '25
People were so angry if you predicted that this would happen. So many posts about how Americans were basically uncultured swines for questioning why this movie was made.
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u/kango234 Jan 20 '25
Reading the comments here and some people are still getting defensive. Honestly though, if they made a $100 million dollar movie about Brittney Spears and it bombed I wouldn't be surprised either. I just think a lot of people these days don't want to watch another rags to riches story and I feel like after the 80s, there aren't as many legendary super stars that everyone knows and listened to, especially not ones that can support a $100 million dollar budget.
And if there are, no one wants to see them as a photorealistic cgi monkey.
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u/TB1289 Jan 20 '25
I get your point but I actually think a Britney Spears biopic would crush given how polarizing her situation is. I can't pretend to know how big of a star Britney is outside of the US, but I imagine she's a big enough star that her movie would still do well worldwide.
There's only a couple box office markets that matter and the US is one of them. Percentage wise, no one in the US knows who Robbie Williams is and even fewer care to spend money to see his life story portrayed by a monkey. It's an even bigger deal that no one in the UK is going to see this either.
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u/Lazzen Jan 20 '25
She's known way more by name and could become a mini-event type of movie, as long as she is not turned into a dolphin or some shit lol
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u/mgwildwood Jan 20 '25
I think if it were as equally critically acclaimed as this one is, a Britney Spears movie would do very well. She has a unique celebrity story that a lot of people know parts of and has been fascinating the public for decades. The problem here is not only that he has less name recognition, but his story seems to be a rather generic one. Her life story includes very compelling topics to explore that have to do with society at large and not just her as a person.
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u/Toddison_McCray Jan 25 '25
That’s absolutely what I’m thinking too. There is no fucking way any bio pic about middle of the pack pop artists from the 90’s and 2000’s would do well. I do think that Brittney Spear’s biopic would be successful just because she’s gone through so much shit in her life, but a biopic about NSYNC or Justin Timberlake? It would be a flop.
Pop artists in the 90’s and 2000’s just weren’t revolutionary. People like Walk the Line because it’s about how one of the greatest country artists battled addiction and changed country music all together. People like Queen because it’s about arguably one of the best singers changing music, battled addiction, and came to terms with having AIDS. People liked A Complete Unknown because it’s about an otherwise incredibly private artist who changed folk, and then completely changed his own style (for the first of many times).
What did Robbie Williams do? Why did the executives at Paramount genuinely think a movie about a relatively ordinary artist who had success in the UK would be a successful movie? The moment they had to make him a monkey to get people’s attention was the moment they should have pulled the plug.
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u/Mr_smith1466 Jan 19 '25
I haven't seen the film, so I'm part of the problem, but everything I see of this film looks spectacular. So it's sad that it's died badly worldwide.
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u/UglyInThMorning Jan 20 '25
The marketing seems designed to actively kill interest. The American reaction seems to be either “that monkey makes me not want to see the movie” or “the monkey thing looked cool and my interest took a shit and died when I learned it wasn’t a fictional story”. I was one of the latter, learning it was a biopic was a strong “no thanks, seen enough of those” moment.
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u/mgwildwood Jan 20 '25
Yeah, the problem with the marketing is that the trailer doesn’t show a standalone interesting story if you divorce it from the celebrity aspect. They mostly highlighted the musical numbers, which implies to me that it is made for his fans. If they had approached the marketing like it was a fictional story so that the audience could get interested in the story itself, it might’ve been more intriguing.
Also, I do think the American audience vibes with singing animal movies. We just generally perceive that as something you can watch with your kids. My impression is that he and some of his fans perceive him as an edgy bad boy, so they struggle to understand how an American audience that doesn’t know him very well would see him. An ex-boy bander with a generic pop catalog, being played by a CGI monkey, should lead to a cleaned up, family friendly movie imho. Making it R-rated on such a big budget was a mistake. I think it would’ve done better that way because once Americans do look into who he is, neither his music nor his persona reads as edgy rocker.
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u/BlitherHeights Jan 20 '25
A real shame. The movie is pretty great and by far one of the best in the musical biopic genre. It’s 10x the movie the Dylan flick. Went in with almost zero knowledge of the subject and enjoyed it as much as any movie I saw in 2024 and more than most. If you like film and enjoy seeing movies at a theater I suggest seeing it before it’s gone. Is worth the big screen experience.
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u/Doubledepalma Jan 19 '25
What about Planet of the Apes?!
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u/Rakebleed Jan 19 '25
Feels like this is not the same demo as the planet of the ape movies.
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u/lightsongtheold Jan 19 '25
Yep. The old ladies who love Robbie Williams were not exactly rushing out to see King Kong or Planet of the Apes. Dumb move to alienate the key demographic of your movie and guarantee it would be DOA.
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u/That-Self4160 Jan 19 '25
I think for the North American release, this film should've put on streaming after a Los Angeles/NYC run before putting up on Paramount+ while the rest of the world is in theatres.
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u/MisterJ_1385 Jan 20 '25
Shame. It’s pretty high up on my top 10 movies of 2024. It’s gonna be one of those things that will get a life on streaming and in 2027 we’ll be getting all these “why did nobody tell me to see this when it came out?” posts.
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u/SugarFolk Jan 20 '25
That's a real shame, but it's hardly surprising. Even here in Aus/NZ, where he's extremely well-known, the film has received little promotion. I wouldn't have known it was out if I didn't regularly check the movie release calendar.
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u/popculturerss A24 Jan 19 '25
There has to be someone at Paramount who was throughly convinced this was actually a Robin Williams biopic and just read the contracts too fast.
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u/JJoanOfArkJameson Paramount Jan 19 '25
A total mistake on many levels, but understandable ones: should've cost less, should've gone wide on or before Christmas for better dailies and attention, should've came out with more space between Robbie's other projects, should've had at least one other star attached to this for a draw.
Still, I loved it. It plays phenomenally in a theater too.
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u/Corgi_Koala Jan 20 '25
Should have not had a stupid fucking CGI monkey for no reason.
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u/JJoanOfArkJameson Paramount Jan 20 '25
Idk, I loved it. It wouldn't be nearly as visually interesting without it. Sure, they would've saved 25M+, but I'm glad they took a swing.
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u/higherlimits1 Jan 19 '25
I don’t know anything about Robbie Williams but this was a great movie. It’s as good or better than A Complete Unknown
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u/hotcolddog Jan 20 '25
If you’d told me that a 2024 biopic about Robbie Williams would surpass those released the same year about Pharrell, Amy Winehouse, Bob Marley, and Bob Dylan, I’d have asked you to remind me who Robbie Williams was.
And yet here we are. Great movie.
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u/Key-Payment2553 Jan 19 '25
Yikes… it’ll be out of wide release by the end of January which is catastrophic for a wider release
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u/Glum-Assistance-7221 Jan 20 '25
Beyond the box office flop. The marketing spend ROI for this film must be ASTRONOMICAL! It felt like they pushed the spend, didn’t get the buzz and then over spent again that didn’t come up at all. It juts nose dived. If the film was $110m USD that has to be least $6.6m USD (if not more) on advertisement & marketing alone in the U.S. territory itself. Worldwide, likely U.K & Australia would be a similar amount combined, it maybe one of the largest flops in history by percentage?
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u/coldliketherockies Jan 19 '25
Too bad I really enjoyed the film but I’m also looking back I but bias, Robbie Williams was at my screening and I talked to him afterwards
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u/greenbeanz_5 Jan 20 '25
That's wild!!!! How was his attitude in person? I think some of the arrogance/cockiness goes up a level when the spotlight is on him...
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u/AnotherJasonOnReddit Best of 2024 Winner Jan 20 '25
Robbie Williams was at my screening and I talked to him afterwards
Neat!
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u/Kevin_1990_EUR Jan 19 '25
For anyone who has seen it, is it that kinda movie where everyone suddenly stops the scene and begins singing and dancing? I want to see the movie but I hate such movies...
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u/BoomClank25 Jan 19 '25
Saw it about a week ago, really liked it!
From what I remember, Rock DJ is the only number in the film played like that. The other numbers are either performed at a concert in-universe, through a montage, or have something going on in the scene that moves the characters/story forward. She's the One is a duet that kinda does both, I think.
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u/HobbieK Blumhouse Jan 19 '25
I hope the takeaway here isn’t that way shouldn’t make cool music biopics, but that nobody fucking knows who Robbie Williams is
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u/lightsongtheold Jan 19 '25
He is one of the biggest selling artists of all time. Over 75 million records sold as a solo artist and over 100 million records sold if you count his stuff from his Take That days. That is more sales than Bob Marley and Aretha Franklin! He never made it in the US but is one of Europe’s best selling solo artists.
The takeaway should be don’t alienate your key demographic of ticket buyers. Joker 2 did it and it ended badly. Borderlands did it and it ended badly. Better Man did it and it ended badly. The key demo for this movie was Robbie Williams fans; who are all old ladies. They ain’t showing up for CGI monkey movies. They never have and never will. Same a musical fans ain’t showing up for Joker 2.
If they had gone with a real actor and a reasonable budget European markets could have carried a Robbie Williams biopic to moderate success. They had to budget this knowing it was DOA in the US no matter what they did.
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u/Lost_Blockbuster_VHS Jan 19 '25
Is it any good? I don't think The Greatest Showman is a good movie by any means but I was still pretty entertained. I might see it tomorrow. It's either that or Sing Sing or Nickel Boys.
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u/Gingersnap5322 Jan 20 '25
What’s even his genre that scene “for the next 2 and a half hours your ass! Is mine!” Very rock and roll but this dude looks like he sings R&B
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u/Ovion69 Jan 20 '25
And I think we legit already have the years worse box office bomb. Before the year really even starts frfr.
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u/MVIVN Jan 20 '25
It will do well on streaming because it's a legitimately good film, but damn what a bomb!
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u/tharrison4815 Jan 20 '25
Before I read the comments here I had no idea what this movie was about. Based purely on seeing the poster for this outside my local cinema I assumed it was an action movie about some genetically engineered hybrid soldier turning down fighting to find his humanity or something. I’ve not seen or heard any other marketing or discussions about it before.
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u/Disastrous_Bed_9026 Jan 20 '25
I find this one of the more bizarre movies to be greenlit at this budget. It seemed obvious it’d fail in the US. I wonder if they hope his global fan base may save it. Just bizarre.
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u/cylemmulo Jan 20 '25
I’m interested in seeing it but I’m. It 100% convinced I’m being linked and this artist isn’t completely made up
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u/Big-Man-69123 Jan 20 '25
I saw interviews on this and the whole reason it had $110 Million budget was because of the Rock DJ sequence. They had practiced it in 2022, were ready to shoot and as they were about to the Queen died. So they couldn’t shut down Regent Street for the 4 nights, they couldn’t get the money back so they had to spend the next 5 months making the money back cause as Michael Gracy said, “It wasn’t just a check cause it’s not a big studio film”. The original budget was probably around $60-$80 million. And the budget makes sense cause A.) The CGI is obviously expensive, B.) through out the 2 hour movie Robbie alone has 400 costume changes so they had to buy and digitally scan all 400 costumes for the CG model, and C.) creating all the sets in Australia to be authentic to Knebworth and Royal Albert Hall in 2001. I’m not surprised it isn’t doing well, but everyone saying “Who gave this $110 million”, there’s very much reasoning to it.
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u/vmxcd Jan 20 '25
This is a weird one as I went to see it last week which is 3 weeks out in the UK at it was like half full for the 5:30 showing, it's very rare for my cinema to be that busy at that sort of time by week 2 of nearly any film nevermind the 3rd week so I don't know if it was just starting to get more momentum or not, but it's too late now as from this week it's one 2pm showing a day so basically dead.
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u/d0ntreply_ Jan 21 '25 edited Jan 21 '25
if this were a hollywood film, it would actually be an extinction level flop but this was independently made and more than half of the movie was covered by australian grants and gave a tonne of people jobs and boosted the local economy. so gracey paid out of pocket less than half of the $110mill, so not as an epic flop as compared to other movies. besides, this movie is genuinely great, so the flop is not deserved. should do well on streaming.
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u/bkz730 Jan 21 '25
This movie bombing in the US i think speaks more to 1. The lack of marketing it got in the U.S. and 2. The lack of chances U.S. movie goers are taking now on non-IP/non-genre films.
I saw it and it was one of the better biopics Ive seen in awhile
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u/wahwahwildcat Jan 22 '25
When I saw this trailer in front of Wicked, I had no idea this was an actual person. I thought it was like a not funny Dewey Cox.
Maybe if they have some hint that this was a real person, and they just decided to portray him as a monkey, I might have been more interested to see it.
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u/Mudkip1994 Jan 22 '25
I didn't hear of the movie till last week when I was checking what was playing at my local theater. Then when I looked up what it was I had no clue who Robbie Williams is. I'm not surprised this movie bombed. It's already gone from my theater.
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