As some of you seem to want to discuss, Brad Pitt’s new movie, Allied, sort of bombed at the holiday box office. I had been keeping my eye on the reviews, and even the nice reviews were basically saying that Allied was a heavily stylized piece of fluff. The bad reviews said it was a dumb movie and Brad and Marion Cotillard had zero chemistry together. But did Allied really “bomb”? Well, it didn’t do as badly as Warren Beatty’s Rules Don’t Apply, which is perhaps the biggest bomb of the year. Rules Don’t Apply made $2.2 million over the five-day “holiday” weekend (Wednesday-Sunday). Over the same time period, Allied made $18 million. Which would have been a decent haul if it was some low-budget indie movie. But Robert Zemeckis spent $85 million on Allied. Ridiculous. Obviously, the big #1 film was Disney’s Moana, which made $81.1 million over the five-day holiday. Here’s the assessment of Allied’s box office from Variety:
While “Moana” thrived, other new releases weren’t as fortunate. Paramount’s “Allied” earned $18 million over the five-day period and $13 million for the weekend, a weak result given its $85 million budget. The film stars Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard as spies who marry only to have their love affair become entangled in a larger conspiracy. Robert Zemeckis (“Flight”) directed the picture.
Pitt has gone through a bruising divorce from Angelina Jolie that limited his participation in publicizing the film. The actor didn’t do the kind of television interviews or magazine spreads that might have helped raise “Allied’s” profile. The film also drew a much older crowd, with 39% of ticket-buyers coming in over the age of 50. Paramount suggested that might mean that its core group of ticket buyers may be slower to embrace the picture, even as it acknowledged that the results were disappointing.
“It’s just okay, and over Thanksgiving you always hope for something a little better than okay,” said Megan Colligan, Paramount’s head of marketing and distribution. “The bright spot is that there’s not a lot of competition in the marketplace over the next few weeks and our audience takes a minute to get to the theater.”
It’s a little bit funny to me that Brad so badly wants to be seen as young, hip and sexy and it seems like his core audience – the audience who will show up to see one of his weaker offerings – is made up of 50-somethings. The audience probably watches The History Channel a lot. And NCIS. Anyway, I don’t really think $18 million is a “bomb.” I think it’s a really weak box office and I hope several people learned their lesson: don’t spend $85 million on a silly WWII movie. Don’t allow your star to refuse to do interviews. And don’t try to promote the film based off the “chemistry” of the two leads just hours after the lead’s wife files for divorce. Tacky!
Promotional photos from ‘Allied,’ courtesy of Paramount.
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