The resistance doesn’t pay what it used to.
You may have seen posters for Amsterdam, a big screen push from unhinged hack David O. Russell attacking Republicans. With a star-studded cast that includes Christian Bale, Chris Rock, Margot Robbie and Taylor Swift, entire streets have been draped with the ads for it.
The New Yorker review hailed it as “an Exemplary Work of Resistance Cinema” as part of a “subgenre of movies that has cropped up in response to the authoritarian and hate-filled deeds and rhetoric of the Trump era”. Specifically, the movie digs up the so-called Business Plot invented by the FDR administration as part of its campaign to silence political opponents. The whole thing was a creepy Stalinist exercise that ultimately went nowhere, but is highly redolent of the current media chatter about “disinformation”, “coups” and “threats to democracy”.
Anyway, the next part shouldn’t surprise you too much.
‘Amsterdam’ Stands To Lose Nearly $100 Million – Deadline
The crazy part isn’t that no one went to see a bad movie whose main theme is that America is racist (a pretty common movie theme now), but with a mostly white cast and stars Christian Bale, already a bad actor, mugging so hard at the camera that serious injuries are likely.
The crazy part is how much money was put up on the assumption that this would be a blockbuster.
“Nowhere was this more true than with David O. Russell’s Amsterdam, which rivals believed had a shot at opening to $12 million-$15 million this past weekend”
How insane did they have to be to think that would happen? This is an artsy film, as Russell’s films usually are, not some crowd-pleasing black nationalist garbage from Jordan Peele or Marvel.
Amsterdam, fully financed by New Regency per its deal with Disney/20th Century Studios, was twice as much at a reported $80M, that being the pic’s most piercing nail in its coffin.
Yes, even by pre-pandemic standards, this 1930s-set comedy was expensive, so how did this come to be? Based on a projected global gross of $35M, an estimated $70M global P&A spend — which I’m told is the bare minimum for a big pic like this — backstopped by Regency, Amsterdam after all home ancillaries will lose around $100M ($97M to be exact).
A well-deserved loss.
It’s incredible that after Top Gun 2 turned out to be a money machine, the industry will still throw its full weight behind artsy anti-American garbage. It reminds me of the hundreds of millions burned on anti-war movies during the Iraq War, not one of which was a hit, while American Sniper cashed in. But politics still trumps both art and profits.
Some good news for a change.
Not the anti-Trump merange Resistance fops were looking for.
You know a film is bad when even Resistance shill critics are ambivalent. The theme of a shady business cabal overturning democracy is true to life if you turn it upside down and that’s how I watch Hollywood product. Everything they do is an inversion.
OMG, those guys are boring!
Hollywood Resistance talking to itself about itself De Niro style.
In their hearts when the relentless jibber, jabber finally subsides they know they are empty, frivolous people. So a whole mythology has been created where they can be heroes outside of the movie product they push on people with generous funding from massive multinationals.
Another woke film bombs! When any institution goes woke, let it go broke!
“Amsterdam”? First time I saw the title, I thought, “My man from Amsterdam!” from “Pulp Fiction.” Then thought, “Why?” Then noticed its extreme stylization evoked the Coen brothers, not Tarantino. Which like George Clooney, is a style only the Coen’s seem to have mastered. And based on the few reviews I’ve seen, even critics don’t like it that much. All in all, it looks like “Amsterdam” is a big flop that internet comments usually declare “money laundering.” Which may or may not be true, but certainly goes over big time, even with me.
David O Russel may be a left-wing douchebag but most of his movies have been great. Clever and funny as F. But as soon as I saw the ads that showed “Amsterdam” with a black male star and Christian Bale as a white dork set in the thirties, I knew it was “woke” shit.
Too bad. Margot Robbie is a talented actress.
And thanks for watching it so I wouldn’t have to. Not that I would’ve.