An ‘Artificial’ Issue: Tech Companies & Luca Guadagnino Colliding Makes It Difficult For Studios To Pick Up Nearly-Completed Film – As A24, Focus Features, & Netflix Reluctantly Pull Out, Mubi & Neon Raising Some Interest, Lionsgate & Warner Bros. Are Remaining Contenders That Can Do Wide Releases.
by lowell2017
3 Comments
Weird to include WB as a contender when Variety claimed they passed on it and even this article mentions they’re not interested. Seems like it’s either going to be MUBI or the Briarcliff graveyard.
>> [basically “why was this more than the equivalent of an older gen HBO movie”]
> Well, at the time, Amazon was in the Luca Guadagnino business. They worked together on the Zendaya movie Challengers, which did solid numbers at the box office, $96 million worldwide, and then, if Amazon shared numbers, we would probably see that it did more business for Prime Video when it went on streaming. The meme generation alone was something a studio social media marketing team could only dream of. Luca and Amazon MGM reteamed for the Julia Roberts starrer After the Hunt, which grossed an exceedingly rough $9 million at the global box office on a $70 million-plus budget and wasn’t the awards play Amazon hoped for. Artificial, which Luca came on to after his DC movie Sgt. Rock was indefinitely pushed, was greenlit before After the Hunt came out.
this is a good point and really does flag how Amazon’s clearly acting as if they were very happy with Challengers’ box office gross despite a relatively modest multiple of WWBO to production budget. Probably a combo of worse 2022 environment and Prime data, as this flags.
The Amazon situation really does spell out why this thing is in limbo. They bet big on Guadagnino after Challengers worked, but then After the Hunt tanked so hard on a bloated budget that it basically poisoned the well for everyone else. Now studios see his name and think about that $70 million hole instead of the meme-fueled success of Challengers, which is unfair but how these decisions get made. The tech company conflict stuff is real, but the actual problem is that a prestige director’s recent flop makes it way harder to sell a mid-budget drama, especially when the streamers and smaller distributors are the only ones left willing to take a swing. Briarcliff sitting on it or MUBI picking it up quietly might actually be the best outcome at this point, because at least that stops it from being another box office cautionary tale.