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.

The animated kids' film "Dog Man" opened at 36 M and that makes it the highest grossing film of 2025 so far.

Captain America and Paddington open this weekend in the U.S.

It will be interesting to see how they do.

Looks like Captain America made 100 M plus over the four day weekend.

Captain America tumbled by 68 % this weekend, grossing only 40 M more for a domestic total of 140 M. It may fall well short of 200 M which would be a disappointment.

quote:

Originally posted by Tommy C:
Captain America tumbled by 68 % this weekend, grossing only 40 M more for a domestic total of 140 M. It may fall well short of 200 M which would be a disappointment.

Which is a bummer because it's a good movie! Is it the best MCU film? No. Is is the worst? Absolutely not.

In terms of domestic gross, it passed the 134 M made by 2008's The Incredible Hulk.

As of right now, it is the third lowest grossing Marvel film, of the 35 movies.

The Marvels in 2023 was the lowest (84 M only)

Captain America is likely to reach 300 M worldwide this weekend, however they are saying that the basic budget (without marketing) was nearly 200 M and therefore it will need at least 425 M just to break even.

Captain America grossed 15 M domestically in its third week which means that it won't even come close to reaching 200 M in the U.S., making it one of the lowest grossing Marvel films.

Cap won't get to Deadpool/Wolverine's 28 days in the top spot, but it'll pass Venom 3's 20 days soon. Joker II only had 5 days at #1, so superhero related films only led at the box office for less than 8 total weeks in 2024.

In all of 2023, Shazam 2 got 6 days on top, with Aquaman 2 & Blue Beetle each getting only 3 days at #1 to wrap up that iteration of the DC movie universe.

For Marvel, Guardians 3 got 14 days, Ant-man 3 had 11 days, and The Marvels had 7 days, while Sony's animated Spider-Man 2 managed 17 days, all of which added up to a little over 8 weeks on top for 2023's super-hero movies.

We do seem to have turned a corner on them, but DC is restarting with Superman this summer and Marvel's getting the Avengers back together, so we'll see.

Every Marvel Universe film released since 2016 has grossed at least 200 M domestically with 3 exceptions:

Black Widow (183 M in 2021), Eternals (164 M in 2021) and The Marvels (84 M in 2023)

Captain America will be the fourth one. It might do less business than Black Widow in 2021.

It might actually make less money than the first Captain America and Thor films from 2011.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Tommy C,

The Monkey is listing a budget of $11M so it is already a hit with $25M domestic and $13M International.