First Man - What Went Wrong? - Houston, We Have a Problem.....

[LegendaryBen]

This biopic from the director of Whiplash and La La Land had all the ingredients for a box office hit. However, even with IMAX surcharges, it will fail to finish more than Bridge of Spies, let alone, Apollo 13 domestically.

 

Also, its WOM is not correlating well with its strong reviews.

 

What are other reasons that went wrong with it?

[Macleod]

Is this movie really 3 hours long?  That's one of the problems...

 

Ah...2 hours 20, I see... still too long.  And it doesn't star Tom Hanks.

Edited October 21, 2018 by Macleod

[LegendaryBen]

One could argue that it had tough competition against Venom and A Star is Born, which both are on their way to gross $400M+ domestically combined. Still, Captain Philips, Fury, and even Bridge of Spies were able to co-exist well with Gravity, Gone Girl, and The Martian, respectively. 

 

However, they all had better marketing and storylines than FM.

[shayhiri]

Quote

First Man - What Went Wrong?

 

As the Shay said yesterday: NOT ENOUGH SCI-FI!!

 

There was a lot in it - but not enough.

Edited October 21, 2018 by shayhiri

[Zakiyyah6]

A lot of people are going to say the Flag controversy but I think that the solid but not special trailers hurt the opening weekend and the release date wasn't good as well. What's hurting the legs is the apparent cold/subtle nature of the film. I haven't seen it but that seems to be what I'm hearing.

[MrPink]

I do think the flag controversy hurt it a bit even if far from the sole culprit. It needed to have buzz coming from the festivals, but that sort of dominated the discussion and then ASIB ran away with it. After late August, all of First Man's momentum died. Which speaks to the risks of debuting your film at a major film festival. You can jump to the top, or you can become lost in the shuffle.

 

I think Universal ran a pretty good marketing campaign up until August, and they kinda lost it from there. But A Star is Born is taking away all the adult interest, which even if review wise, they're comparable, the hook is just far greater with ASIB.

[titanic2187]

6/10, pretty meh movie, and the camera keep shaking all the time even in the calm dialogue scene, to the extent that I begin to suspect, there is an earthquake happened on set.  

[aabattery]

It was too good for this world.

[4815162342]

33 minutes ago, shayhiri said:

 

As the Shay said yesterday: NOT ENOUGH SCI-FI!!

 

There was a lot in it - but not enough.

 

There was no sci-fi at all. It is a true story.

[DAJK]

My mom hated this movie. Said it was slow, boring, and only a “few good parts”. I think the fact that it’s got more or less tepid reactions from audiences at a time of year when there are TONS of other options really hurt it.

[shayhiri]

14 minutes ago, 4815162342 said:

 

There was no sci-fi at all. It is a true story.

 

Haven't seen it yet (tomorrow), but the Moon parts were always gonna be iffy. No one has really seen what happened up there (if anything).

[Zakiyyah6]

34 minutes ago, MrPink said:

I do think the flag controversy hurt it a bit even if far from the sole culprit. It needed to have buzz coming from the festivals, but that sort of dominated the discussion and then ASIB ran away with it. After late August, all of First Man's momentum died. Which speaks to the risks of debuting your film at a major film festival. You can jump to the top, or you can become lost in the shuffle.

 

I think Universal ran a pretty good marketing campaign up until August, and they kinda lost it from there. But A Star is Born is taking away all the adult interest, which even if review wise, they're comparable, the hook is just far greater with ASIB.

I do agree that the Flag controversy hurt it so far as the film wasn't being the thing talked about any more. It was an unforced error on the part of the director and Gosling. They made an uncontroversial movie controversial and you never want to do that. I'm sure some idiotic Snowflakey conservatives didn't see it because of that but if the film really delivered excitement wise I think all would have been well. Hell, conservatives got mad at Jamie Lee Curtis because she is for gun control, they even called her a hypocrite because she is using a gun in the movie and that didn't stop Halloween from opening with 77.5mil. 

 

Fact is The Martian and Gravity looked way, way more exciting and had charismatic movie stars who weren't giving subtle stone faced performances. I love Gosling and I'm sure he is fine in the film but that type of performance will bring no one in to see a film that already looked like it lacked excitement. I know the real man was that way so I'm not calling it a bad choice artistically, I'm just saying that it was bound to hurt the film at the box office. People don't want small and subtle space movies. 

Edited October 22, 2018 by Zakiyyah6

[Curtis1986]

The film was basic and boring

[Deja23]

The trailers were basic and boring.

 

I love Ryan Gosling and think he’s a terrific and charismatic actor. But the trailers for First Man didn’t make it seem all that exciting. And it wasn’t just because of ‘broody’ Gosling. Maybe it’s the premise and the fact that a significant part of the movie seemed to dwell on well known history, but it just didn’t seem like a must-see film or even one I was interested knowing what others thought before making up my mind. It’s just one of those films that the great reviews didn’t make much of a difference and the flag ‘controversy’ might’ve turned off some who may have been interested. 

 

Admittedly, I don’t think I’m much of a Chazelle fan. Couldn’t get past the first half of La La Land, so I wasn’t particularly interested in testing my indifference to another one of his movies. 

Edited October 22, 2018 by Deja23

[Kalo]

I saw the movie, it is not a crowd-pleaser, it's cold and distant feeling. It was one of my most anticipated films of the year, and it ended up being one of the biggest disappointments for me. The way it was made felt really anti-cinematic for the story it was telling. It was almost the polar opposite of La La Land, which was my main reason for wanting to see it (Damien Chazelle that is). It's trailers kind of had the same vibe, and with Venom and A Star is Born taking up most of the spotlight right now, it just got lost in the shuffle. 

[Merkel]

They should've released this in July next year, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. It would have a given it a extra degree of exposure and relevance

[AniNate]

I don't think audiences wanted a movie that turns what many consider one of the country's greatest scientific achievements into an angsty, semi depressing mood piece. Walking out of it I feared it might actually discourage support for the space program, which I'm pretty sure is not something anyone who holds Armstrong in high regard desires.

[filmlover]

When it was first dated for an October release, it seemed like it was being primed to be a major smash like Gravity, Interstellar (which was released in November but we'll throw it in for comparisons sake), and The Martian were in similar release dates. But the marketing never really caught fire, and word getting out that you had to sit through a slow-paced nearly two hour drama to get to the IMAX-worthy segment of the film that the marketing was hyping up probably didn't help either. And other movies overshadowed it. That said, I think it's doing as well anyone could've expected it to after seeing it.

Edited October 22, 2018 by filmlover

[grim22]

Just now, filmlover said:

When it was first dated for an October release, it seemed like it was being primed to be a major smash like Gravity, Interstellar (which was released in November but we'll throw it in for comparisons sake), and The Martian were in similar release dates. But the marketing never really caught fire, and word getting out that you had to sit through a slow-paced nearly two hour drama to get the IMAX-worthy segment of the film that the marketing was hyping up probably didn't help either. And other movies overshadowed it. That said, I think it's doing as well anyone could've expected it to after seeing it.

One thing I saw online was "The movie has less than 8 minutes of full IMAX??" That feedback killed it as an IMAX event. If they wanted an IMAX event, at least 30 minutes or more is needed to make the audience feel like they got their money's worth.

[La Binoche]

Everyone knows how it ends 

 

La La Land made people realize Gosling has a dull screen presence 

 

The female lead whose name I forget is box office poison (not a bad actress, though) 

 

The movie is long and cold 

 

Adults can only pay $200 for a movie and a babysitter once every few months. They chose ASIB instead