By: Dominic La-Viola
Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film One Battle After Another is bound to set a new box office record for the 11-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker. Grossing over 200 million at the box office, it’s his biggest film yet.
Yet with that being said, the film is still due to lose 100 million dollars at the box office, not only making it a box office failure but also ending the box office streak of its star Leonardo DiCaprio.
Now, with that being said, that leaves one question to be answered: What happened? Why is a film that has a stellar cast such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, and Benicio del Toro. Set to lose so much money? Now, Penn doesn’t have the same hold over audiences as he once did during his peak, and Benicio del Toro is a fantastic actor, yet I wouldn’t consider him an A-list movie star.
Of course, Chase Infinity is a newcomer, so there is no star power there to bring audiences in. Not to say that she didn’t give a career-changing performance. She held her own alongside some of the greatest performers working today.
The problem, I think, isn’t with its stars but with its producers and the executives at WB. To sink 140 million in the budget along with another 70 million more in marketing for a 3-hour-long drama is just insane . Not to mention Anderson’s track record.
Paul Thomas Anderson is an amazing filmmaker, but he makes arthouse-style films. Ones that are not commercially marketable. His entire career has been that way. His last film, Licorice Pizza, made only 33 million on a 40 million-dollar budget.
Inherent Vice made 14.8 million on a 20 million-dollar budget. Punch-Drunk Love made 24.6 million on a 25 million-dollar budget. Phantom Thread made 52 million on a 35 million-dollar budget, which seems like a one-off. You can go down the list of films he made and cross-reference the box office with estimated production costs.
Only a handful of his projects ever made money, not including the marketing that was spent on the film. So why is everyone pretending that this is a huge deal, when it really isn’t? His movies, his style of filmmaking, they’re not for everyone and they’re very much an acquired taste.
Even if we look over the fact that most of his movies lose money, even though they are critically acclaimed and are usually the talk of award season. This movie was doomed from the start.
The budget was almost 4 times what he normally gets to produce a film. Which, in my opinion, was a rather large budget for a film of this nature. Not to mention that the film is coming in at just under 3 hours, which by any standards is long. Very long.
Taking that into consideration along with the fact that modern audiences don’t like and can’t sit through long movies. With TikTok and all the various platforms like it, modern audiences don’t have the attention spans of audience members in decades prior.
Along with that, there is also the fact that the longer the film, the fewer times it can be screened in a theater at any given day. Taking it from, say, 9 screenings a day to 5. Cutting the amount of options by 4. Per day, per theater. Losing exponential ticket sales over the course of its theater run.
Now, many people will have different takes on why the film lost money and was a financial failure. While others consider it to still be a success, regardless of its financial loss, due to the fact that it was critically acclaimed and is generating a lot of Oscar buzz.
The movie was a box office failure and will be no matter how many Oscars it wins. No matter how much it makes on VOD and physical media sales. Although with that being said, failing at the box office isn’t that big of a deal. Fight Club was a box office failure that became a cult classic and made its money back 3 times over in video sales.
The real question remains, will WB’s investment pay off during award season, peaking interest to help recover its losses with VOD and physical media sales.