Bros fails at the box office, Smile arrives at No 1

THERE is no easy way to say it: When the reviews are this sensational, the marketing support is this substantive and the theatrical footprint is this wide – and ticket sales are nonetheless this low – it usually amounts to outright marketplace rejection.

Bros, the first gay romantic comedy from a major studio, arrived to an estimated US$4.8 million in ticket sales in the United States and Canada, about 40 per cent less than the low end of pre-release analyst expectations. Universal Pictures booked the movie onto 3,350 screens and spent an estimated US$30 million to US$40 million to promote it.

Bros, starring Luke Macfarlane and Billy Eichner, who also co-wrote the script, cost roughly US$22 million to make. It received mostly positive reviews.

Yet it was a distant fourth at the weekend box office.

“We’ll see where we go from here,” Jim Orr, Universal’s president of domestic distribution, said by phone on Sunday (Oct 2). “We’re incredibly proud of the film, and I really believe there is going to be great word of mouth.”

Ticket buyers gave Bros an A grade in CinemaScore exit polls.

Smile, a new horror movie from Paramount Pictures that cost an estimated US$17 million to make, was No 1 in North American theatres, with ticket sales between Thursday night and Sunday of about US$22 million. It received strong reviews.

“This is an excellent opening, the kind that launches a new horror series,” David A Gross, who runs Franchise Entertainment Research, a film consultancy, said in an e-mail.

In its second weekend, Don’t Worry Darling (Warner Bros) was second, collecting roughly US$7.3 million, for a total of US$32.8 million.

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In its third weekend, The Woman King (Sony) was third, selling about US$7 million in tickets, for a cumulative US$46.7 million.

Universal’s marketing campaign for Bros started in May and emphasised its comedic bona fides; producers included Judd Apatow, the force behind hits such as Trainwreck and Bridesmaids, and Nicholas Stoller, known for Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Stoller also directed Bros and co-wrote the script.

In August and September, Universal brought Bros to film festivals and screened exclusive footage in cities across the United States. Eichner aggressively promoted the film, appearing on almost every major talk show and reviving his popular Billy on the Street comedy series.

Going into the weekend, stars such as Chris Evans, Seth Rogen and Mariah Carey pleaded with people on Twitter to buy tickets for Bros.

Movies struggle to find a theatrical audience all the time. But the R-rated Bros was heavily promoted as historic – a first for mass-market, studio-driven cinema because it focuses on love and sex between two men. It featured an all-LGBTQ principal cast.

There is the possibility that studios, in their risk-averse way, will now point to the disappointing results for Bros as justification for passing on other theatrical films with LGBTQ relationships in the forefront.

What went wrong in this case?

In going after the widest audience possible, Bros may have fallen into a marketplace nether world – too straight for gay audiences, and too gay for straight ones, some analysts posited. Several long-time film distribution executives noted that Eichner can be polarising as a comedic personality, and that his star power, at least on movie theatre marquees, is minimal. And, of course, homophobia cannot be ruled out.

Gross, the film consultant, noted that romantic comedies of all kinds have struggled at the box office in recent years. The genre now mostly lives on streaming services.

Studios have released 40 rom-coms in theatres over the past decade (four per year), compared to 212 during the 15 years before that (14 per year).

Universal will try again on Oct 21, when it releases Ticket to Paradise, a romantic comedy starring Julia Roberts and George Clooney.

Several films found a theatrical audience in September – The Woman King among them – but movie going is still struggling to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

In September, the domestic box office was down 54 per cent compared with September 2019, Gross said. NYTIMES