On Box Office Double Standards...

If we want Hollywood to release more non-franchise studio programmers, then a small-scale flick released by Paramount should perhaps be held to the same commercial standard as one released by A24.

“This movie is very audacious and brave. You are talking about a director at the top of his game and an actress at the top of her game. They made a movie that was intended to be bold. Everyone wants original filmmaking, and everyone celebrates Netflix when they tell a story no one else wants to tell. This is our version. We don’t want all movies to be safe. And it’s okay if some people don’t like it.” – Megan Colligan, on September 17, 2017, discussing mother! less than two months before she was canned as Paramount’s Worldwide President of Marketing and Distribution.

Dev Patel’s The Peasant goes to A24…

In good news for presumably good movies, A24 has acquired Dev Patel’s The Peasant. Deadline reported that A24 paid $30 million for the domestic and overseas (which they will presumably sell) distribution rights for Patel’s second self-directed and self-starring actioner. This comes after Universal, with a gentle nudge from Jordan Peele, rescued Patel’s Monkey Man from Netflix purgatory in an attempt to turn it into a theatrical “event.” Despite having a banger announcement trailer with a buzzy SXSW debut, the merely well-liked action thriller “only” earned $25 million domestically and $35 million worldwide from a $10 million debut. Fun fact: Only eight A24 films have topped $25 million domestically. Will The Peasant’s theatrical performance be judged on a different scale because it’s an A24 flick and not a Universal release?

Monkey Man was seen as, if not an actual financial whiff (I’ll surmise post-theatrical made up for theatrical shortfalls), a disappointment in relation to potentially hyperbolic expectations. In retrospect, Patel wasn’t a butts-in-seats draw outside the perpetually online/film geek ecosystem. Monkey Man was bleaker and less “fun” than Atomic Blonde, John Wick, Taken, or The Equalizer. Nonetheless, enter Patel’s The Peasant. Written by Will Dunn, the 2023 Black List project concerns a shepherd who goes on a righteous revenge quest against mercenary knights in the 1300s. The pitch is “Braveheart + John Wick + The Green Knight.” However, as Hollywood makes a (presumably) good-faith effort to release more “just a movie” high-concept flicks, should a small-scale strikeout from a major studio be treated harsher than one from a smaller distributor?