A24 bet big on Benny Safdie’s wrestling biopic “The Smashing Machine”… and lost. The Dwayne Johnson-led film, which had him playing UFC champion Mark Kerr, debuted to just $5.9 million domestically on over 3,000 screens.
Just a few weeks back, opening weekend box-office projections were in the $17 million range – now, estimates of the film’s overall domestic gross by the time its done are hovering around the $15 million mark.
Budgeted at $50 million, not including a high-profile marketing campaign, it’s a career-worst debut for Johnson and stands to lose tens of millions for A24. Sports dramas don’t travel well overseas, ones about American wrestling even less so, so international box-office isn’t expected to save the movie.
Questions are now being asked. The film may have scored a 15-minute ovation at Venice, but general reviews have been weak with a 64 from critics and a 4.1/10 from audiences on Metacritic while the B- CinemaScore suggests the audience didn’t like what it saw.
Variety indicates that almost 70% of the audience who showed up for the film were males 18-36, the kind that normally comes out for a traditional Dwayne Johnson tentpole, which potentially explains the disappointment. The arthouse crowd didn’t show up.
Johnson himself has now responded to the box-office results, praising director Benny Safdie and the cast and crew as well as the audience that did come out to check out the film:
