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=19
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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/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/_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/tellmort-yourmove Jan 20 '25

Even better. I wish they had tried to explain that in some way in the trailer instead of just ape sings songs.

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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