Kathryn24601

Glad to have confirmed that there is a lot more Rob on the soundtrack than in the film. I may actually play it sometime!!

Can anyone get hold of that full Sirius FM interview? I always seem to struggle to get Sirius stuff in the U.K.

Gah! Even in a relatively well-researched article, popular narrative wins out over facts. This is just not true. The ‘hits’ did not ‘dry up’ in the U.K.’a few years later’. Even if we take this as from 2006 and only in the U.K.: Rudebox: No 4 Lovelight: No 8 Bodies: No 2 You Know Me: No 6 Shame: No 2 Candy: No 1 Go Gentle: No 10. and that is with taking 3 years off entirely and a couple of years for the Take That reunion. And it’s not true that the EMI deal was a ‘bad bet’ or that it had any impact of the sale of EMI. That deal was profitable for EMI! This is one of my beefs with the Netflix doc - it perpetuated that narrative rather than correct it.

It’s not a British film, it’s an Australian film. And they didn’t heavily promote it for BAFTA consideration - all of the awards-promotion effort was in North America. As for why it hasn’t done great box office internationally? It’s the monkey. It just doesn’t look good in the advertising.

It’s being pulled from a lot of cinemas, so that is unlikely.

Yes, I think it would have sold better here in the U.K. without the monkey. It is very rare for films to do well without star performers in lead parts and having the main character be CGI robs the film of that. The monkey is not attractive to look at, and does not get across Robbie’s charisma. That is no slight on Weta or Jonno, who have done fine work, but it’s just not visually appealing. You get used to it after 10 minutes but the trailers only last for 4 minutes. Also you miss out on the charisma of an actor playing the part. Basically the mainstream audience that usually goes to biopics for a bit of nostalgia and relive the heyday of their favourite artist is not going to show up if they don’t recognise the lead. Michael Gracey kept saying that Robbie is not visually iconic but he absolutely is if you were a teenager in the 90s! Also I have seen a lot of people attribute the monkey to Robbie’s ego and narcissism. The conclusions people leapt to are: So he can play himself Because he couldn’t bear to have a hot young actor playing him And he does himself no favours by describing himself as a narcissist all the time! He is not actually a narcissist! Narcissists do not spend their time running themselves down! There’s also the ‘why does he deserve a biopic’ thing. People have a weird thing about biopics being celebrations of culturally significant or relevant artists, and not just interesting stories about people. Again, Rob and Michael Gracey constantly talking down his talent was not at all helpful.

Thanks guys, I appreciate the support. I’d forgotten that I Found Heaven wasn’t written by Gary. That really does suggest to me that Gary refused to have any of his original songs in the film. Also realised that the reason we have Land of a 1000 Dances on the XXV tour is because it is featured heavily in the film and Rob is retrospectively claiming it. Why they didn’t use one of his own tracks there is baffling to me. Obviously the Tom Jones moment was iconic but the song itself has never been strongly associated with him. Yes, I had noticed that even the live audience has dwindled a bit - that second date at the Emirates has not sold out yet. Rob always says he is in the ‘between Christmas and New Year’ phase of his career but I think there’s more going on than that. I’ve noticed that the TV stations like the BBC who use their archives for easy, cheap TV shows rarely feature him. Like, there’s a ‘Take That at the BBC’ special on there but not one about Rob. He didn’t appear in the ‘best of the 90s’ special either. It’s like someone in commissioning and programming there doesn't like him and is memory-holing his career deliberately, because there is plenty of archive they could use. He hasn’t had the musical reassessment he deserves. And things that should have helped with that - like the Netflix doc - haven’t. I think Rob and his management have at times been a bit too trusting and haven’t paid enough attention to whether that sort of project is actually promoting his image. I know he wants to be authentic and seen as a human being, but the truth is that bands and artists who build strong third act legacies don’t do it by telling everyone they are terrible and running their own music down. They engage in self-mythologising about how amazing they are! The only thing that actually seemed to positively move the needle for him among the undecided was Boybands Forever.

I am looking for a silver lining! Of course everyone was hoping for it to be a huge and unexpected box office smash. I’ve had misgivings for a while, to be honest. No stars is a problem, a film with a wild concept is a problem, the way the CGI looks on a phone screen is a problem, and the budget was always going to be a problem. And I noticed the complete and total silence from the Take That boys themselves. It’s just felt odd to me that they have basically ignored the existence of a major feature film they are depicted in. It really does suggest a lack of goodwill that is going to put off certain Take That fans. Also, I hate to admit it, but I’m not in love with the versions of the songs in the film. I don’t like the edits. The vast majority of them are not performable for promotion. They have fudged around the fact that it’s another singer in promotion but I can definitely hear that it’s not Robbie in a lot of moments and I am not the only one. I don’t think there’s enough of his or Take That’s music in it - it’s mad (or possibly it’s a permission issue) that Back For Good is not featured - hell, it is mad that Could It Be Magic is not featured and they don’t show Robbie grabbing the limelight from Gary with both hands and eating it up. I don’t like that it ends with My Way and not with one of Robbie’s own songs. In fact they don’t show how brilliant Robbie is as a performer barely at all. We just get a quick montage, we never get the satisfaction of enjoying him as a performer. I am feeling grumpy about this today because I was really hoping this would propel Robbie back into the charts in a positive way.

Well, it’s still more exposure than Robbie has had in the USA for the past 25 years. There is no such thing as bad publicity, as they say. People who hadn’t heard of him before have sampled his music. The reviews are generally good enough that people will curiosity-watch on streaming. Streaming has a much lower barrier to watching. The news coverage of it being a massive flop - and that is what the coverage is going to be - is all going to point to the fact that the film is well-reviewed. There is a possibility that it attains ‘cult status’. That people with a contrarian bent will seek it out.

It would need make 10x as much as it has by now by the end of the weekend to be considered a success. Which seems really unlikely given the general attitude towards it we have seen so far. Most people just are not responding well to the trailers and the advertising. The marketing is not winning hearts and minds even among the general public in countries where he has a large fanbase. This is partly a demographic problem. Cinema-going skews young and male. Robbie’s existing audience is middle aged and skews female. The younger male demographic doesn’t usually like musicals, they definitely don’t like boybands, And we all know that there is a strong contingent of hatred hanging on among the older male audience. The younger female audience who love musicals are spending their money on Wicked. And the advertising doesn’t seem to be tempting them in - there’s no character for young women to focus on in the advertising and there are no stars.

The Brutalist is also a Box Office bomb, yes. It would need to make back at least twice its budget to be considered a ‘hit’. That is because it is common knowledge that it costs almost as much to market a film as it does to make it. And don’t forget the cinema chain needs to take a cut of the ticket price to pay its own running costs and make a profit. A film that cannot make enough at the box office to cover its cost of production and marketing is a bomb - it is a financial loss. This is the rule that everyone who knows movie box office goes by. Most films will make most of their money on their opening weekend. It is rare for a film to have ‘legs’, and make money in cinemas for a long time. Typically the percentage of its opening weekend box office a film makes from cinema box office drops from week to week, because the people who are going to see it at the cinema see it in the first few weeks after release. The Greatest Showman was a film that surprised everyone by having legs - it opened low, was initially considered a flop, but people started vibing with the songs and taking big groups of friends to see it, and it gained a momentum all of its own. The songs became hits, people wanted to see the film because they heard the songs, and it all caused a positive feedback loop. That was the hope for Better Man. But it’s not happening. The reviews are good and people are enjoying it but not in high enough numbers to move the needle in pop culture and get the momentum it needs to be a box office hit.

It’s not making enough money at the box office, folks. Unless an absolute miracle happens (and I don’t think it will - the reviews and word of mouth have been great for weeks, and people are still not turning up to the cinema) it is going to be considered a massive box office bomb. Hopefully people will catch it on streaming, but the headlines and think pieces about its box office performance are going to be harsh for a while.

Just to mention that the ‘wide’ release has been scaled back from 2700 theatres to 1200 in the US. The film does appear to be a bit cursed with bad luck. I am sure people will find it on streaming eventually.

You missed the joke. Rob’s on record saying he lost his dignity years ago and never missed it! He even says it in the film. He’s got nothing to lose. But realistically he will be disappointed if the film is not considered a success. The reviews are great. The box office is not looking amazing. Maybe it’ll turn around - I’d love it if it did, but I do think some fans are a little unrealistic about what is considered successful in movie world.

The film cost $110 million to make, so yeah, unless it develops unprecedented legs it is a disaster from a box office point of view. It was equity financed so the investors don’t get any money back unless it makes a profit. Of course that doesn’t mean it won’t do its job for Rob’s profile. It would be much better for it to be a smash hit, but as long as he didn’t invest in it himself he has nothing to lose but his dignity.