This weekend saw mixed fortunes for Hollywood at the box office. Disney/Pixar’s latest release, Hoppers, saw a solid return, landing with a healthy $45 million. The metrics show there was a good combination of anticipation and benefitting from decent weather across the country, which led to steady foot traffic. Add to that schools going through Spring Break in the coming weeks, and this was a tailor-made success.
But another title also debuted and was roundly ignored. The anticipated reworking of the Frankenstein story arrived: The Bride. This was a touted release with a hefty budget, a robust cast, and a curious approach to the source material. The plot alone would be a tough sell, being a reworking of the original Mary Shelly storyline. This is a high-concept plot involving the spirit of the dead author inhabiting a woman who is killed and later brought back to life in the fashion of her original monster, who called for the reanimation to take place. Yes…I know…
Adding to the challenge was that this was the work of actress/director Maggie Gyllenhaal, who was doing more than filming a gender-switch plotline; as she explains it, this was part of her anti-Trump artistic quest. If that sounds daft and nonsensical, that is only because it is actually bat guano ludicrous.
Gyllenhaal sat with the New York Times for an interview ahead of the release, and she explains that she segued from acting to directing for a primary reason: Donald Trump rose to power.
In one portion of this interview, Maggie describes what motivated her to step behind the camera.
“I wonder if what’s happening culturally is gonna…Okay, I will say one thing about this – it’s gonna bring, like, an unstoppable…umm, response. Maybe especially from women. I will say, and I don’t know if I said this out loud before… (pause) Again, maybe I’ll get in trouble but I…I actually think that when I really became a director was actually I think the first time, um, that the morning that Trump was first elected. I think I was like, I have a lot more to say, than I’ve been saying.”
Look, I am not one to question one's artistic muse; hey, use whatever you can to motivate your creativity, I suppose. But there does seem to be a slight lack of introspection on her part. She was driven on this quest at the time when Trump had only been elected and had not even put into play a policy to rail against. Plus, you are deriving inspiration from your antagonism towards an individual who quite probably has zero regard for you.
This is less an inspiration to go on a creative quest than it is to deliver a lecture. When your approach to your craft is an “I’m going to show him!” effort, regarding an individual who most likely will not ever view what it is you are showing, you are hobbling your talents. And now let’s just look at the results for her feminist anti-Trump release.
During pre-production, this script was a movie initially courted by Netflix. The streamer, however, balked at Gyllenhaal’s desire to film in New York, with the studio pushing for a New Jersey location to keep the budget down. (When the company that rarely hesitates to toss mountains of cash at projects is telling you to rein in the costs, maybe you should heed their accountants.) But Maggie fought for her vision, and she found sympathetic investors at Warner Bros. Discovery.
The budget and marketing for her film are estimated to have landed around $80-100 million for the studio. That is a hefty gamble for a period piece horror that is a reworking of a classic plot. Then Warners made a scheduling decision.
Because the star of the film, Jessie Buckley, who plays the titular Bride, was nominated for an Academy Award in another film — Hamnet — it was thought that moving the release to March 6 could generate some exposure. This looked like a sound decision, after Buckley won trophies at the Actors Awards, BAFTA, and the Golden Globes. If she were to be talked up in the press ahead of this weekend’s Oscar telecast, that might generate some publicity. That proved to be something of a Hail Mary attempt.
That move also undercut the film in another manner. Netflix, in passing on this effort, instead went with a Guillermo DelToro version of the original Frankenstein story, a faithful adaptation starring Oscar Isaac. Netflix's version came out in November, an opulent affair favored by critics and drawing large audiences on that platform. Not only did this undercut interest in The Bride, but it paled in comparison as DelToro’s Frankenstein received nine Oscar nominations.
As a result, going into the weekend, the expectations were modulated but hopeful. The studio was projecting an opening of just under $20 million, with slightly more than that expected to be earned overseas. Then the revisions began. The exhibitors were eyeing more of a $12-15m return, and then the previews saw that scaled back further, to barely cracking double digits.
The audience scores tell the story of what happened. There was muted interest ahead of the debut, so word-of-mouth was going to be needed. Exit grades from Cinemascore showed audiences graded the film with a C+. Generally, anything below an A grade is deemed as lukewarm, so this was a rather dismal return, and it was matched with those people saying they would recommend the movie coming in below 50 percent.
As a result, the anti-Trump-inspired feminist retelling (no pun intended, I swear) died in the theaters. Even those revised numbers did not accurately predict the failure. The dismal turnout on Friday was followed by a drop of -16 percent on Saturday, despite more show times. As a result, the estimated $7.3 million earned was taken even lower when the actual numbers came in on Monday.
So domestically, the film barely crossed $7 million, and the worldwide total was just over $13 million, when a global haul was hoped to be near $40 million. All told, the estimates are that Warner Bros. Discover might be facing a loss of at least $80 million, at a time when it is trying to close its takeover bid by Skydance Media. The timing of this disaster was fortunate for curent Warners CEO, David Zaslav. Just last week he cashed out millions of shares after the deal with Skydance was finalized.
Editor's Note: For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all.
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