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/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. 

9

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.

9

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. 

1

u/Skyblacker Jan 22 '25

But a sanitized Robbie Williams story would be boring AF. The conflict mostly comes from his addictions.