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jimnyc
10-15-2018, 02:56 PM
We as Americans love Old Glory. There's a special attachment to her. :) :)

Karma can be a bitch!

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'First Man' Crashes In The Box Office Following Flag Controversy

"First Man," the Neil Armstrong biopic about the 1969 moon landing, failed to blast off in the box office weekend following a heated controversy over director Damien Chazelle's decision to omit the astronaut's planting of the American flag on the lunar surface.

"The visceral historical drama got grounded in its domestic debut with $16.5 million, despite positive reviews," The Hollywood Reporter reports. Internationally, "First Man" performed even worse, earning just $8.6 million in 22 markets. With a production price tag of $70 million plus another $50 to $100 million in marketing costs, the film could be a major loss for Universal Pictures.

Despite the poor numbers, Universal has expressed confidence the film will perform well over time after getting major boosts this coming awards season, during which it is expected to be nominated for various top prizes.

"Our core audience, adult males, don’t necessarily run out on opening weekend," says Jim Orr, Universal's president of domestic distribution. "We'll have a great run for weeks and months to come."

Though critics have heaped praise upon the film with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 88%, audiences have been less enthusiastic. It holds just a 7.7 rating on IMDB with a B+ audience rating on CinemaScore. On Rotten Tomatoes, the audience rating was even worse at just 60%.

In fairness to Orr, his projection that "First Man" could pull in big numbers over time is not without precedent. Both "Bridge of Spies" and "Argo" debuted to dismal box office receipts but went on to gross well past the $150 million mark during awards season. The big BUT to that, however, is that none of those films were dogged by the same controversy "First Man" stepped into the moment its star Ryan Gosling said the American flag planting was intentionally omitted.

"I think this was widely regarded in the end as a human achievement [and] that's how we chose to view it," Gosling said of the decision.

After hearing of this, Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, blasted the film, prompting a fierce backlash. Since no evidence currently exists that the controversy is spurring the bad performance, time will tell if the critical success of "First Man" will propel it to financial success.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/37136/first-man-crashes-box-office-following-flag-paul-bois

Abbey Marie
10-15-2018, 04:18 PM
We went to see this Saturday, at my urging.

I had not heard about the controversy until reading this thread. I’m glad I hadn’t because I really liked the movie. They did not show the moment Armstrong planted our flag, but I didn’t notice, as there was a shot with the flag already planted, in the movie. Albeit not very front-and-center or long.

Like Dunkirk with a fighter plane, it gave me a real feel for what it was like to pilot these craft. The take-offs were crazy.

High_Plains_Drifter
10-15-2018, 04:36 PM
I don't do theaters, and haven't for decades. I'm not planning on buying this movie either. Omitting the flag planting is right along the same lines as these jackass clowns kneeling during the national anthem... fuck 'em both... they can stick their rotten movie where the sun don't shine. It's anti Americanism, pure and simple, leftist bull shit.

Abbey Marie
10-15-2018, 04:39 PM
Oh, btw, I’ll bet Buzz Aldrin was more mad about his portrayal in the movie, than the flag issue.
In fact, I suspect that is the real reason he’s pissed.

Russ
10-15-2018, 06:45 PM
I had heard about the flag-planting omission (before we went to see the film) but went to the film with an open mind and I ended up not feeling there was any snub. The flag was show already planted, and America was portrayed in a good enough light, I thought.

I did have the impression that the director was trying to make the audience not like Buzz Aldrin, for whatever reason. The director chose to give Aldrin a few negative lines, and to have a totally bald guy to portray Aldrin though he still has a pretty full head of hair. I kept thinking "what the hell does he have against Aldrin?". Maybe Aldrin said those things, but he didn't lose his hair in the 60's and grow it back last year.