At the starting block Better Man trips over untied shoelaces and falls on its face!

Not one thing in the previews made me want to see this. Rock/Music biopics already suffer by being over sanitized with a distinct formula. What they need is more honesty not gimmicks claiming to be self perception.

I guess asking if there was even an audience for a Robbie Williams biopic should have been the first topic discussed. Wanting a production budget of $110M should have been the second.

I'm not a fan of his and wouldn't watch this movie unless you paid me, especially as I don't like monkeys. But I think you're underestimating how big he is/was in the UK and the rest of the world. From former Take That teenie bopper fans, to his solo career.
If you go back to 2003 he was playing to something like 375,000 fans over three concerts at Knebworth.
I never really got it, but he was a huge pop star here.

No one in the U.S. ever heard of him.

And yet Paramount Pictures paid 100 M for the rights to the movie.

This weekend the film grossed 1.1 M in the U.S. and worldwide it has made 10 M total.

quote:

Originally posted by David R:
No one in the U.S. ever heard of him.

And yet Paramount Pictures paid 100 M for the rights to the movie.

This weekend the film grossed 1.1 M in the U.S. and worldwide it has made 10 M total.

The first part of your statement is a bit of stretch. There are some in the US that have heard of him. Maybe not you, though. Although, I reckon if you searched out the song 'Angels' it might ring a bell. Unless you've lived under a rock.
Anyway, to the rest of the world(that's not the US) he is really well known. However, he's done nothing lately nor for many years, so the timing is a little bizarre for the movie and the monkey gimmick is really weird.
I'm not sure it would entice even his old fans, trying to recapture their youth, to the expense of a cinema to see it. I think it would do OK on streaming though and that's where the main audience will be later.

I certainly don't deny he hit a vein in certain areas of pop culture. I also agree I have barely heard of him and looking him up does not seem to be a valid reason to invest $110M production budget. I mean if Bob Marley can't hit $100M at the box office??? For this film to be successful it would have to pull in Elvis numbers from 2022. I'm just very confused at what the studio was thinking to be honest. Maybe a big international draw? Which doesn't seem to be happening either.

I think my point was more along the line that gimmicks aren't going to fix the droning noise of the music biopic formula. Simply too many ego's and estates to protect to give us something real.

quote:

Originally posted by Hedgehog Witch:

The first part of your statement is a bit of stretch. There are some in the US that have heard of him. Maybe not you, though. Although, I reckon if you searched out the song 'Angels' it might ring a bell. Unless you've lived under a rock.

David's sentiment is what I'm hearing from many sources. He's just not a known name in this country, and to introduce him to the masses as a chimp makes zero sense. I don't know how anybody in US studios thought this might be well received. I guess they were banking on the director's name to sell tickets.

quote:

Originally posted by Ted Dastick Jr.:

David's sentiment is what I'm hearing from many sources. He's just not a known name in this country, and to introduce him to the masses as a chimp makes zero sense. I don't know how anybody in US studios thought this might be well received. I guess they were banking on the director's name to sell tickets.

I was interested, not in the movie , but in whether it was made by US studios. I did a google search, and it's not.
"Better Man was produced by a combination of UK, European, Australian, and Far Eastern independent production companies." The only US involvement is Paramount Pictures, who just have the North American distribution rights.
So it would appear no US studio was involved with the actual making or ordering of it, which makes sense if he's apparently unknown over there.
The fact it's being released in the US to view is just Paramount distributing it...and by the sounds of it, probably regretting buying those distribution rights.

Wolf Man opened this weekend and it looks to gross a mere 12 M, according to reports

quote:

Originally posted by David R:
Wolf Man opened this weekend and it looks to gross a mere 12 M, according to reports

Fortunately it is listing a reasonable budget of $25M. Really surprised Nosferatu did as well as it did.