So far, Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” appears to have been doing everything right.
The trailers have been out there and playing, screenings for it began early, and reviews have been raves across the board. Filmmakers and critics are calling this easily one of the best films of the year and a serious awards contender come Oscar time.
In addition, those who’ve seen it also claim it has plenty of commercial appeal – something increasingly rare in film awards circles. However, there’s a problem – the film’s budget is high, and interest in seeing it is not.
Box-Office Pro reports that the film is tracking for a domestic debut of just $15-20 million. That’s a decent start for what is a 160-minute R-rated movie from a filmmaker whose biggest box-office success to date is “There Will Be Blood” with a total worldwide gross of $76 million.
However, the studio is citing a $130-140 million budget for the project, with third parties playing it higher (above $150 million). At that price, it needs to do better than just a ‘decent start’.
Leonardo DiCaprio’s star appeal was expected to be a big draw, but a report at Puck News using data from Greenlight Analytics has gone into that factor, and there appears to be an issue. While studies show him to be one of the most respected actors alive, he lacks the theatrical pull of some of his contemporaries and in particular is struggling to get under-35s to the cinemas.
He also has a surprising number of respondents (nearly 25%) who dub him ‘overrated’. His lack of social media presence and refusal to join large IP and superhero franchises are apparently seen as limiting his reach with younger moviegoers.
In the 2010’s, DiCaprio films could easily clear $250 million worldwide like “Shutter Island” ($294m), “The Great Gatsby” ($353m), “The Wolf of Wall Street” ($407m), “Django Unchained” ($426m), “The Revenant” ($533m) and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” ($392m).
The concern now is that the film will perform like Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” did in the cinema, that movie opening to $23 million domestically and topped out at $158 million worldwide.
The film will have little in the way of competition as fest launched titles like “The Smashing Machine” and “Roofman” are looking to debut in October to considerably less ($6-10 million & $10-15 million respectively). The next big opener will be Disney’s “TRON: Ares” on October 10th with early projections at $35-45 million.
