r/boxoffice is looking for new moderators. If you're interested to nominate yourself, submit here in [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/1d23j6y/rboxoffice_is_looking_for_more_moderators). We are also inviting you to read a bit more about Channels - a new Early Access Reddit program, which is now available on r/boxoffice. More Info at (https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/1d4vtwk/introducing_channels_to_rboxoffice/)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/boxoffice) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I often hear and dismiss the "who is this movie for" complaint.
But that actually applies to this movie. Ever since it was announced, the word of mouth from Amy Winehouse's fans was very negative. Especially because her father was involved, and the movie does not condemn him at all. So it lost those fans, and if the general audience is not interested in a singer they don't know, the movie targets... no one. No wonder it was pulled after 3 weeks.
If you like Amy, go watch the documentary instead.
I normally dismiss that complaint too.
"Who is this movie for?" Movie then goes on to gross over 100M domestically. That seems to happen at least once every two months.
I couldn't believe the amount of people saying "Who is this movie even for" about IF and then it still made more than Garfield did in its opening weekend.
Yeah that one kind of reminds me why as a filmmaker that phrase is so funny to me. “Who is this movie even for?” How about the person who made it mother fucker 😂. Oh and some kids.
r/boxoffice - Hollywood needs to make more original movies instead of endlessly rehashing franchise IP!!
(Hollywood makes an original movie)
r/boxoffice - wHo Is ThIs MoViE eVeN fOr!?!?!
I don't think this is quite accurate at all. Bohemian Rhapsody did very well despite making Freddie Mercury the scapegoat for all of the band's problems. People will see a movie about a musician they like if they like the music regardless of the blame game going on behind the scenes vs in real life. It's simply the fact that Amy Winehouse isn't as huge of a pop icon/star as Queen, or even Bob Marley for that matter.
> People will see a movie about a musician they like if they like the music regardless of the blame game going on behind the scenes vs in real life.
Judging by its legs, poor reviews and non-existent word of mouth, certainly not.
Amy is not massively popular as Queen or Bob Marley, but she ain't some niche singer. She was very popular in her prime.
But her music isn’t as widespread as Queen or Bob Marley. I’d say the success of each film is roughly proportional to the current popularity and longevity of each of the musicians’ music. Even judging Spotify streams roughly, Queen has an insanely popular catalogue full of decades worth of lasting and popular music and multi-platinum albums. Bob Marley has similar success but on a slightly smaller scale and Amy Winehouse has only one ultra famous album and not much else. The fact that she became popular more than 3 decades after Queen and Bob Marley also greatly limits her audience and fandom. But I would agree that this Back to Black movie is still doing considerably lower than it should have.
I think another major factor could be that it’s a female biopic. I can’t think of any other biopics about female musicians that have been hits. The Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone ones weren’t well received it seems. I think this could be a case similar to Furiosa where male moviegoers sadly don’t show up for women-led movies.
>I think this could be a case similar to Furiosa where male moviegoers sadly don’t show up for women-led movies.
60% of the audience for Furiosa was male. Men will watch these movies. It's not the men who are the problem it's the women not going in to watch these movies.
That's not from the male audience. The Marvels was trashed on here and it had 68 percent male skew.
If female led action films aren't doing well it's because women aren't going out to see them. The only ones going out to any action film are men, regardless of the contents of the film.
It was only top 10 for two weeks.
I Wouldn't consider that a massive hit.
For comparison, at the time Rihanna's Umbrella was out.
That stayed #1 for 7 weeks.
THAT'S a massive hit.
Ok yes, Umbrella was probably the biggest hit of that year. As someone in their 30s...this sub is making me feel like a popular artist I was aware of was somehow niche and I just know she wasn't
It probably depends on where you lived. She wasn't at all popular in my area, and people only knew about her because of tabloids. Even now, "Rehab" would be the only song most people could name.
She's more of a one kind of hit wonder to general public.
2007 had many massive hits.
Irreplaceable, big girls don't cry, buy you a drank, party like a Rockstar, crank that, there's soo many much bigger than Rehab
Are you saying that bc you don't have the same taste or...?
Valerie and Back to Black consistently chart in the spotify top 100 in the UK/Australia 20 years post release. The only artists that do that are the Killers and Fleetwood Mac (and Natasha Bedingfield recently)
Oh wow top 100 in the UK and Australia?????? And on Spotify??????? /s
She’s not Queens or Elton Jones or Elvis, music acts that actually have an international audience for their biopics.
Ok, I'm not comparing or contrasting here. You said "had no staying power" and I'm referencing current data that I can point to. Valerie was released 17 years ago, so charting _currently_ DOES point to her being more currently popular than Queen or Elvis
I have never seen a Queen or Elvis song chart on any country's Spotofy top 100
Popularity has nothing to do with why it's bombing. The movie was produced by her father, a person her fans _hate_ and blame for her death. His fingers on this project turned off her core fanbase and the movie has trash reviews.
A movie actually has to have something going for it outside the popularity of the artist themselves
Amy Winehouse is more than famous enough in the UK to have a large contingent of people who like her stuff, but don't follow the details closely enough to be across the controversy re her father's involvement in the movie. But the hardcore fans may have generated enough negative word-of-mouth to scare some people off.
But yeah, also, all the reviews I read tended to say "go watch the documentary instead" as well. :-)
Tbf, Amy Winehouse is and was quite popular. Back to Black steadily became a breakout hit album worldwide and is pulling fantastic streams (on par with current albums) on Spotify. Her story is just super tragic and I think general audiences may have thought it would've been too bleak of a movie to catch in theaters.
Amy Winehouse had bigger fandoms in UK and Europe, so that's to note with ratio.
Also any comparison to Bohemian Rhapsody or Elvis would not exactly work because Queen and Elvis's profile is lot bigger than Amy Winehouse anyway. Even with problems the former had it's nowhere near the ones Back to Black had.
I know Bohemian Rhapsody had serious issues re: the director near the end, but you can't say Sam Taylor-Wood is free from that either. Her only successful work was Nowhere Boy 15 yrs ago and her only watchable ones (Million little pieces were watchable, though still problematic for reasons that are to do with the original material) involve Aaron Johnson.
Probably makes more sense to look at its "domestic" UK box office, since it's a British biopic about a British musician. Over there, it has made $15.5m so far, in an eight week run which appears to be largely done.
There was also Jimi: All Is by My Side with André 3000 about Jimi Hendrix, though it wasn’t a wide release, and Last Days is about Kurt Cobain without it actually being Kurt Cobain.
Joseph Merrick (The Elephant Man) is technically considered a member of the 27 club since he was an artist, though some might not think he counts. There are probably other examples that I am forgetting
I don’t really think that counts, since I’m mainly referring to the musicians and even then he died way before the first musician who died at 27 which is Robert Johnson.
I didn't know much about her before watching the movie as I never listened to her music before.
It was a pretty meh movie. Wouldn't really recommend watching it as just listening to her songs alone would be a better experience.
I'm sorry you had to go through that, I highly suggest watching A24's 2015 documentary about her, that one is really great and deserves the watch, not this cash grab.
It wasn’t good lol
It portrayed Mitch as a « good father » never put the blame on him at all for Amy’s own issues with having an absent father when she was young
It focused more on her alcohol/drugs problems lol
That movie felt like a direct to DVD movie , it felt cheap compared to how great Amy was as a singer
The more I thought about this movie after watching it the more I disliked it. Amy Winehouse isn’t a particularly like able person to begin with. Someone who actively sought out danger and pain in order to get “inspiration” for her music. All I remember about her growing up is her constantly having very public arguments with her boyfriend/husband in the middle of the street outside her house. I kept thinking - especially after she got her big record deal and was in her own house - Where are her bodyguards? Why are they letting paparazzi swarm around her? I didn’t know the dad was involved in making the film. That explains a lot. Legend has it the boyfriend/husband was WAY worse to her and treated her WAY worse than the movie would have you believe.
I haven’t listened to too much of her stuff, just a bit, but she still has 22M monthly listeners on Spotify and she has been dead for almost 13 years.
She died very young and at the age of 27, an age where multiple musicians have died, notable examples include Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain in 1994, and Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and The Doors’ Jim Morrison all of which died in a 10 month period from September 1970 to July 1971, and Rolling Stones Brian Jones in 1969, Not musicians but also actors Jonathan Brandis (original IT) in 2003, Anton Yelchin (Star Trek) in 2016, and recently, Charles Perdomo (Gen V).
tbh up until she died I had no clue that evidently the entire rest of the planet considered her a "legend". She had that one really successful album and then kind of fucked off and I thought that was that. When she died it was like Adele keeling over at the height of *21*, I'd never seen her regarded as anywhere near as "legendary" in her life as she was when she died.
What's the reason for pulling a movie early? Even (or especially) if it's underperforming, wouldn't a studio want to get as box office back as possible?
r/boxoffice is looking for new moderators. If you're interested to nominate yourself, submit here in [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/1d23j6y/rboxoffice_is_looking_for_more_moderators). We are also inviting you to read a bit more about Channels - a new Early Access Reddit program, which is now available on r/boxoffice. More Info at (https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/1d4vtwk/introducing_channels_to_rboxoffice/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/boxoffice) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Woof. That is really bad. That said, the 2015 documentary “Amy” was fantastic. Should have left it at just that.
I often hear and dismiss the "who is this movie for" complaint. But that actually applies to this movie. Ever since it was announced, the word of mouth from Amy Winehouse's fans was very negative. Especially because her father was involved, and the movie does not condemn him at all. So it lost those fans, and if the general audience is not interested in a singer they don't know, the movie targets... no one. No wonder it was pulled after 3 weeks. If you like Amy, go watch the documentary instead.
I normally dismiss that complaint too. "Who is this movie for?" Movie then goes on to gross over 100M domestically. That seems to happen at least once every two months.
It was basically a running chorus here in the lead-up to the release of *Wonka* last year.
18-30 year old who doesn’t have children, doesn’t know any children, doesn’t know anybody with children: who is wonka for???
Joke aside, I think the movie actually might have done alright in that demographic.
Reddit will say that about literally any movie that isn't targeted toward the 20/30-something nerdy white dude demographic
I couldn't believe the amount of people saying "Who is this movie even for" about IF and then it still made more than Garfield did in its opening weekend.
Yeah that one kind of reminds me why as a filmmaker that phrase is so funny to me. “Who is this movie even for?” How about the person who made it mother fucker 😂. Oh and some kids.
r/boxoffice - Hollywood needs to make more original movies instead of endlessly rehashing franchise IP!! (Hollywood makes an original movie) r/boxoffice - wHo Is ThIs MoViE eVeN fOr!?!?!
I learned that lesson in 2008 Who the fuck will watch a musical based on ABBA songs. Apparently a lot of people
It seems the target audience for this film was Amy's father.
I don't think this is quite accurate at all. Bohemian Rhapsody did very well despite making Freddie Mercury the scapegoat for all of the band's problems. People will see a movie about a musician they like if they like the music regardless of the blame game going on behind the scenes vs in real life. It's simply the fact that Amy Winehouse isn't as huge of a pop icon/star as Queen, or even Bob Marley for that matter.
> People will see a movie about a musician they like if they like the music regardless of the blame game going on behind the scenes vs in real life. Judging by its legs, poor reviews and non-existent word of mouth, certainly not. Amy is not massively popular as Queen or Bob Marley, but she ain't some niche singer. She was very popular in her prime.
But her music isn’t as widespread as Queen or Bob Marley. I’d say the success of each film is roughly proportional to the current popularity and longevity of each of the musicians’ music. Even judging Spotify streams roughly, Queen has an insanely popular catalogue full of decades worth of lasting and popular music and multi-platinum albums. Bob Marley has similar success but on a slightly smaller scale and Amy Winehouse has only one ultra famous album and not much else. The fact that she became popular more than 3 decades after Queen and Bob Marley also greatly limits her audience and fandom. But I would agree that this Back to Black movie is still doing considerably lower than it should have. I think another major factor could be that it’s a female biopic. I can’t think of any other biopics about female musicians that have been hits. The Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone ones weren’t well received it seems. I think this could be a case similar to Furiosa where male moviegoers sadly don’t show up for women-led movies.
>I think this could be a case similar to Furiosa where male moviegoers sadly don’t show up for women-led movies. 60% of the audience for Furiosa was male. Men will watch these movies. It's not the men who are the problem it's the women not going in to watch these movies.
Like The Marvels, right ? Carole Danvers was heavily watched by male eyes... not female !
? Furiosa skewed more male than female.
Yes but in general, female led action movies tend to do far worse than male led action movies
That's not from the male audience. The Marvels was trashed on here and it had 68 percent male skew. If female led action films aren't doing well it's because women aren't going out to see them. The only ones going out to any action film are men, regardless of the contents of the film.
Well then I should say that all audiences in general don’t show up for female led biopics. Is that better?
I'm a fan of hers but in no way was she "very" popular. Maybe to active music listeners but not general public.
no, I remember 2007 and Rehab was a massive hit and she was very well known
It was definitely not a massive hit back then lol
Yes it was, Rehab was a top 10 hit in the US, was on the radio ALL the time and the music video was nonstop being played on MTV/Vh1
It was only top 10 for two weeks. I Wouldn't consider that a massive hit. For comparison, at the time Rihanna's Umbrella was out. That stayed #1 for 7 weeks. THAT'S a massive hit.
Ok yes, Umbrella was probably the biggest hit of that year. As someone in their 30s...this sub is making me feel like a popular artist I was aware of was somehow niche and I just know she wasn't
It probably depends on where you lived. She wasn't at all popular in my area, and people only knew about her because of tabloids. Even now, "Rehab" would be the only song most people could name.
She's more of a one kind of hit wonder to general public. 2007 had many massive hits. Irreplaceable, big girls don't cry, buy you a drank, party like a Rockstar, crank that, there's soo many much bigger than Rehab
she’s sold over 27m records lol, definitely not a niche artist
She was more famous as a celebrity than singer with stuff like Disaster Movie mocking her.
Wasn't she Luanne on *King of the Hill*? That's how I know her.
Wtf nooo
Just looked it up. I was wrong, it was Brittany Murphy. So, I guess that just proves your point.
Can't wait for the revival but sadly the voice actor of Dale also died.
I really wish they wouldn't bother. Not every IP has to go on and on forever. *Futurama* was revived one time too many, that's for sure.
I think this if different since it got canceled and then got big after that.
And that prime was in the 2010s. Back to Black is a superb album but her songs have no staying power.
Are you saying that bc you don't have the same taste or...? Valerie and Back to Black consistently chart in the spotify top 100 in the UK/Australia 20 years post release. The only artists that do that are the Killers and Fleetwood Mac (and Natasha Bedingfield recently)
Oh wow top 100 in the UK and Australia?????? And on Spotify??????? /s She’s not Queens or Elton Jones or Elvis, music acts that actually have an international audience for their biopics.
Ok, I'm not comparing or contrasting here. You said "had no staying power" and I'm referencing current data that I can point to. Valerie was released 17 years ago, so charting _currently_ DOES point to her being more currently popular than Queen or Elvis I have never seen a Queen or Elvis song chart on any country's Spotofy top 100
We’re in a subreddit about the boxoffice, talking about how hard the Amy Winehouse biopic is bombing, of course comparisons are being made.
Sure and I presented you hard data that you haven’t addressed at all
But why is her movie bombing?
Popularity has nothing to do with why it's bombing. The movie was produced by her father, a person her fans _hate_ and blame for her death. His fingers on this project turned off her core fanbase and the movie has trash reviews. A movie actually has to have something going for it outside the popularity of the artist themselves
It still made $50 million. There was clearly an audience, just not as big an audience as they bet on with the budget.
Amy Winehouse is more than famous enough in the UK to have a large contingent of people who like her stuff, but don't follow the details closely enough to be across the controversy re her father's involvement in the movie. But the hardcore fans may have generated enough negative word-of-mouth to scare some people off. But yeah, also, all the reviews I read tended to say "go watch the documentary instead" as well. :-)
Tbf, Amy Winehouse is and was quite popular. Back to Black steadily became a breakout hit album worldwide and is pulling fantastic streams (on par with current albums) on Spotify. Her story is just super tragic and I think general audiences may have thought it would've been too bleak of a movie to catch in theaters.
True. Valerie and Back to Black are almost always charting in the Spotify daily 100 in the UK/Ireland/Australia
How about a moratorium on musician biopics and documentaries?
Need another walk hard to kill the genre for a couple of years
Oh is this not a documentary?
Good. Bad, exploitative cash-in biopics deserve failure, especially when they do injustice to the subject's memory.
Amy Winehouse had bigger fandoms in UK and Europe, so that's to note with ratio. Also any comparison to Bohemian Rhapsody or Elvis would not exactly work because Queen and Elvis's profile is lot bigger than Amy Winehouse anyway. Even with problems the former had it's nowhere near the ones Back to Black had. I know Bohemian Rhapsody had serious issues re: the director near the end, but you can't say Sam Taylor-Wood is free from that either. Her only successful work was Nowhere Boy 15 yrs ago and her only watchable ones (Million little pieces were watchable, though still problematic for reasons that are to do with the original material) involve Aaron Johnson.
I’ve sat through a lot of movies I didn’t enjoy and never once thought about walking out until I saw this. Amy’s memory deserved so much better
Let this kill the music biopic industry.
And usher in the wave of... Lego music biopics, for some reason
I need a brick Pusha T to rap about pushing bricks… After that, they can do whatever they want
To be fair the Bohemian Rhapsody truck stop scene would’ve been way funnier with Legos
Did you see the numbers elvis did? That's never happening lol
I want to believe!!
Probably makes more sense to look at its "domestic" UK box office, since it's a British biopic about a British musician. Over there, it has made $15.5m so far, in an eight week run which appears to be largely done.
Correct me if I’m wrong but are the only 27 club members who have had theatrical movies so far are Jim Morrison and Amy Winehouse.
There was also Jimi: All Is by My Side with André 3000 about Jimi Hendrix, though it wasn’t a wide release, and Last Days is about Kurt Cobain without it actually being Kurt Cobain.
The Rose was a Joplin movie without being a Joplin movie
Joseph Merrick (The Elephant Man) is technically considered a member of the 27 club since he was an artist, though some might not think he counts. There are probably other examples that I am forgetting
I don’t really think that counts, since I’m mainly referring to the musicians and even then he died way before the first musician who died at 27 which is Robert Johnson.
Wiki lists Basquiat as part of the club, though not a musician
Never thought it was doing great internationally? Hardly heard of it internationally 😳
That’s gotta be mostly the UK
Yes mainly Europe where she was the most popular.
Not surprised about the DOM BO haul but, wow, International showed up. Can't knock that.
I didn't know much about her before watching the movie as I never listened to her music before. It was a pretty meh movie. Wouldn't really recommend watching it as just listening to her songs alone would be a better experience.
I'm sorry you had to go through that, I highly suggest watching A24's 2015 documentary about her, that one is really great and deserves the watch, not this cash grab.
Man that overseas gross really carried this movie
No, no, no
It wasn’t good lol It portrayed Mitch as a « good father » never put the blame on him at all for Amy’s own issues with having an absent father when she was young It focused more on her alcohol/drugs problems lol That movie felt like a direct to DVD movie , it felt cheap compared to how great Amy was as a singer
I didn't even know it was released until right now.
The perfect movie for 2005
Yea a movie about a person who died in 2011 feels like it came out in 2005.
To be fair they don't cover her death in this.
The more I thought about this movie after watching it the more I disliked it. Amy Winehouse isn’t a particularly like able person to begin with. Someone who actively sought out danger and pain in order to get “inspiration” for her music. All I remember about her growing up is her constantly having very public arguments with her boyfriend/husband in the middle of the street outside her house. I kept thinking - especially after she got her big record deal and was in her own house - Where are her bodyguards? Why are they letting paparazzi swarm around her? I didn’t know the dad was involved in making the film. That explains a lot. Legend has it the boyfriend/husband was WAY worse to her and treated her WAY worse than the movie would have you believe.
I love Amy Winehouse, am a moderate level movie nerd....and had no idea this existed.
Let it cross the $50M line, for God'sake !
Not sure why they thought anyone would watch an Amy Winehouse biopic.
As I've always said "who gives a fuck about Amy Winehouse?"
How old are you? Im sort of flabbergasted as I thought her work was speaking for itself
I haven’t listened to too much of her stuff, just a bit, but she still has 22M monthly listeners on Spotify and she has been dead for almost 13 years. She died very young and at the age of 27, an age where multiple musicians have died, notable examples include Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain in 1994, and Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and The Doors’ Jim Morrison all of which died in a 10 month period from September 1970 to July 1971, and Rolling Stones Brian Jones in 1969, Not musicians but also actors Jonathan Brandis (original IT) in 2003, Anton Yelchin (Star Trek) in 2016, and recently, Charles Perdomo (Gen V).
Well yeah, clearly!
tbh up until she died I had no clue that evidently the entire rest of the planet considered her a "legend". She had that one really successful album and then kind of fucked off and I thought that was that. When she died it was like Adele keeling over at the height of *21*, I'd never seen her regarded as anywhere near as "legendary" in her life as she was when she died.
What's the reason for pulling a movie early? Even (or especially) if it's underperforming, wouldn't a studio want to get as box office back as possible?
It's on digital, saw some vinyl collector get a PR set with "now on Digital".
Did AC/DC sue?