Not every film can be a blockbuster. Or even a success, as DreamWorks and the team behind The Fifth Estate have learned this year. According to financial mag Forbes, the Julian Assange/WikiLeaks film earned just $6 million – globally, that is – and despite a relatively thrifty $28 million budget, saw a return of just 21 per cent. Ouch…
Despite the presence of Benedict Cumberbatch and a topical subject, it would appear moviegoers just weren’t desperate to watch a film about Assange and his controversial website. It didn’t help that the reviews were decidedly mixed, skewing towards the negative end of the spectrum. Director Bill Condon realised he was in trouble on the first weekend.
“We were all so excited because it was just in the news recently, but the opposite might be true, that it simply wore out its welcome and that there is something about Assange. I do think there’s something about him that does not suggest an evening’s entertainment,” Condon told EW. “It’s so interesting because when something doesn’t live up to expectations then, God, you really start second guessing if it was this little thing you missed, but when something is as big a rout as this is — I mean truly there turned out to be no audience for it in a major way — it’s kind of extreme, you know? It really does make you look at the bigger picture.”
Other films that failed to earn much of their budget back included Sylvester Stallone’s** Bullet To The Head**, Paranoia, Parker and Mark Wahlberg / Russell Crowe thriller Broken Cit****y. Looks like audiences decided to attend sometime in Neveuary…