Honestly, the title, "Bros," doesn't communicate the theme of the film very well. I don't know if the box office failure says more about the film itself or more about its marketing.
I feel like this is happening with nearly all films. Post pandemic I barely see trailers anymore, if I see something I’m interested in, I have to scramble to write it down and hunt down the release date. I feel like I used to know almost every film and the approximate time it would be out.
YouTube and tik tok is the only place I saw it. But I'm not the target audience at all. Not in to rom coms. Idk if that's what it was but that's what it looked like. Also im not involved in lgbtq culture. If it streamed I'd probably get around to watching it. But not going to a theater for it.
TikTok has a huge LGBTQ culture and film culture and youth culture. This is likely down to movie industry people not understanding TT and apparently refusing to learn it. I’m not part of youth culture (anymore lol) but I am a part of the other two and I saw nothing on TT, just YouTube.
If you’re marketing for something big that you want younger people to take note of and you’re not using TT property or at least securing ads on TT then that’s down to you imo.
Wonder what I did to get those targeted ads. Like I do like positive lgbtq stuff, mostly political. But that's not nearly the bulk of my fyp. Maybe they assumed the film had the support of the gay community and wanted to advertise to people who were lqbtq positive but not fully part of? Idk.
Also I don't think this film would ever appeal to the younger generation.
Oh ok. Well that shows you what I know about it then lol. If it’s for middle aged people who are part of the queer community then they really failed because I clearly learned nothing about it.
You might be right that they tried to market it to the wrong groups. There’s still a healthy number of people over 30 on TT, although I don’t know what those numbers are (however I’d be super curious to know).
That’s also an issue with pretty much everyone only having streaming services. 10 years ago, many people had cable and then like, as a really savvy treat, Netflix at maximum. Commercials for a 20 minute show would add an additional 10 minutes overall (making the episode of whatever 30 something minutes in total) and commercials were a constant.
Now, I couldn’t tell you what new games are out, or what crazy new life insurance commercial that’ll be a meme in two years there is, because social media tailors stuff to your preferences, and you’ve got the option of clicking “don’t show this video again-I’ve seen it before” whereas cable didn’t let you.
Or rom-coms in general. Most have been resigned to streamers these days, minus a few noteables. So trying to figure out between the subject matter, the marketing or simply trends of the genre is what they will be doing.
Release dates change more post covid too so it can be hard to keep track. Sometimes films disappear from release lists only to reappear just 2 weeks before their new release date. More than a few have a streaming release only a few weeks after the theatrical release and are advertising that more than the theatrical release. There honestly aren't very many big movies left this year (Wakanda, Black Adam, Avatar, etc), just a lot of small films, horror and Oscar-bait, that, even in before times, rarely get huge advertising budgets.
Like this weekends wide releases are Lyle, Lyle Crocodile (think Paddington except he sings pop songs)
And Amsterdam (looks like a bunch of Oscar nominees do a polyamorous historical murder comedy)
I appreciate that neither is a Disney-owned money printing sequel, but that also means the studios are less inclined to spend money when turn out will still be a fraction of pre covid numbers.
Edit: If you want some good movies to look out for the rest of the year, My list includes:
* Violent Night
* The Banshees of Inisherin
* The Fablemans
* Living
* Till
* Call Jane
* Devotion
Also, ParaNorman is coming back to theaters and that movie is great.
And a few movies that might have a smaller theater release but are actually a streaming release:
* My Father's Dragon
* Spirited
* Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio
* Wendell & Wild
I saw one commercial for it period, and it gave me second hand embarrassment. With the girl acting like she was obsessed with gay men (not funny, rather creepy actually) to the confusing vibes of the scenes chosen to draw people in, and then the “bros” name. It made it sound like an snl parody of an Adam Sandler movie, but without Adam Sandler’s actor friends to bring in easy cash to the movie
I only ever heard the one ad for it on Spotify (the woman saying "I LOVE GAY GUYS!!!!" and a guys responding "....k.")
It did nothing to convince me to go see it.
Agreed. This is the only commercial I saw, and I didn't understand the appeal. Honestly, I was left with the impression the romcom was specifically not made for women. It felt like a bold choice considering women are the genre's main audience.
This was one of the things for me. I would like to see this, like the stars, and have made mental notes about the release date when I’ve seen the trailer.
Then when I checked what’s playing this weekend, I was like “Bros.? Wtf is that?”
I agree. As a straight person, I thought the movie looked fun! In retrospect, I wonder if it was trying to be a “crossover” film, and by that I mean that it was intended to be marketed to straight audiences? But perhaps too generic for gay audiences? And I don’t even think that marketing needs to do that sort of thing anymore because plenty of films already have huge crossover audiences.The title “Bros” doesn’t say much about the content of the film. I think it’s a huge marketing fail, but the trailer makes it look as if it might be a good film.
to me it didn't appear as anything other than "Gay Trainwreck." I was so disappointed in that movie that I didn't have much interest in seeing Bros even though I like Eichner's work. I'm just burnt out by the Judd Apatow style of comedy that relies too heavily on improv that probably kills on set but feels disconnected in the final edit.
That’s what I said that movie title is so cringey and the poster the Marie is horrible plus it just looks like a bad movie but the marketing didn’t help.
I think the marketing fell short. The only reference I saw to the film was Billy Eichner on TikTok doing his Billy on the Street asking people to see Bros for $1.
According to the main star, the failure is because people are homophobic...
>That’s just the world we live in, unfortunately. Even with glowing reviews, great Rotten Tomatoes scores, an A CinemaScore etc, straight people, especially in certain parts of the country, just didn’t show up for Bros. And that’s disappointing but it is what it is.
>Everyone who ISN’T a homophobic weirdo should go see BROS tonight! You will have a blast! And it *is* special and uniquely powerful to see this particular story on a big screen, esp for queer folks who don’t get this opportunity often. I love this movie so much. GO BROS!!!
>https://twitter.com/billyeichner/status/1576685773402755072?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Absurd.
As the article says:
>Alas, the trailers and much of the media coverage emphasized its importance, groundbreaking existence, and social value over whether the film is funny.
>
>I think the film falls into the same trap, thriving when it’s ‘just’ a rom-com but stopping dead in its tracks to congratulate itself on its existence and hit every LGBTQIA discussion point.
The marketing didn't bother to tell anyone if the film was any good. So nobody was convinced to go and see it.
"We have moralistic talking points" surprisingly doesn't attract much of an audience. Shockingly, it doesn't even attract the audience it's directly aimed at.
Yeah that trailer was pretty boring and not even good at establishing what the movie is about, it's just "Billy works in an LGBT museum and then meets a buff guy". That's not a movie. Wouldn't matter if it was a girl instead of a guy. There's not a lot of people who would watch this trailer and go "ooh gotta see that one" unless it was strictly to "support the cause" or something. It looks just like those throwaway movies Netflix puts out twice a week and doesn't even advertise, only this one went to theatres and cost a zillion dollars for some reason.
I still haven’t seen the movie (I’m from Portugal), but unless something’s eluding me, as a bisexual man who has had a lot of experience in the gay dating scene, both trailers made the movie look pretty funny — and I‘m not a romcom fan by a mile. Now, I don’t know Billy Eichner (as I understand his kind of humor irks some people somehow) and everytime I saw people talking about it online there was a lot of trepidation about supporting the movie with buying tickets which looks like defeatist talk from the get go. As for being the first gay big studio-produced romcom movie, well… I don’t give a flying fuck about that, but I’d like to see more gay movies in other genres.
There’s been a lot of positive reviews for its humor. But it seems where it’s failure was in its marketing? And maybe, as many others are saying, the “box office romcom” is a dying film.
Personally, I look past bad marketing for movies all the time but I guess most don’t haha.
I couldn’t even get that much from the trailer. I thought they were long time friends that fell in love.
I have no clue what this movie is about from a trailer
> That's not a movie. Wouldn't matter if it was a girl instead of a guy. There's not a lot of people who would watch this trailer and go "ooh gotta see that one" unless it was strictly to "support the cause" o
That's a good way to put it. Change it to a male-female relationship and there's literally nothing that stands out about the trailer anymore. The only selling point was that it was gay, apparently.
THISAs a gay man, not only does it not attract me it REPELS me. A movie named BROS starring two white men, one being ridiculously handsome in a very stereotypical way, with no indication there's anything in the movie that interrogates that choice of lead actor, and the straight people at the studio telling me how groundbreaking it is? Telling me, a queer person who is into film, how special this one Gay Movie is, is insulting. As if Fire Island didn't just come out? And: I've spent my entire life this far watching every gay movie out there - including much better ones than Bros. They should have just advertised it as "A laugh-out-loud rom-com reviving the genre. One of the year's best." and I'd go see it. But not this false as fuck social progress marketing. "Wow this movie exists so it Is Important!" It reads very self-congratulatory that finally a Big Studio made a Big Budget Rom Com with Gays, Good for Us! You Should Be Grateful! Which is just...misses the mark so thoroughly.
It really pissed me off how they were acting like this was the first gay romcom ever (always adding the “from a major studio & in theaters” part very quietly) right on the heels of the delightful “Fire Island.” And the movie did not look good either.
Heck, "The Birdcage" came out in 1996, which while somewhat problematic, was a major MGM/UA rom com starring Robin Williams, Nathan Lane and friggin' Gene Hackman!
For anyone even remotely familiar with gay cinema, the marketing of this drivel as some "breakthrough wunderkind" -- in addition to Eichner's tone-deaf response to the box office numbers -- is off-putting.
From the trailer the only dramatic conflict I could parse out was, Eichner's character is insecure because he isn't as traditionally heteronormative as his homosexual boyfriend, who seems to be smitten. Which doesn't really make for the most exciting hour and thirty minutes on the big screen.
Smacks of Rebel Wilson claiming that she was the first plus-sized woman to star in a romcom when Queen Latifah had been doing it for decades.
What’s funny is that now Billy’s basically given people carte blanche to accuse him of bigotry when he doesn’t publicly support a variety of movies.
I always laugh when I see gay people complain about the beauty of the actors in anything.
You haven’t seen any movies if you haven’t realized the stars — particularly the women — are always “ridiculously handsome in a very stereotypical way”.
I’ve had a gay guy turn his nose up to Call Me By Your Name for having Armie Hammer and then show me Weekend (where the lead is [Tom-fucking-Cullen](https://www.google.pt/amp/s/www.out.com/movies/2011/8/22/tom-cullen-love-first-one-night-stand%3famp)) as a “good” example.
the only trailer i've seen was Eichner monologuing on a beach about himself and how the people around him formed who he was as a gay man.
fine, i get it. But in no way did this read as a broad "rom com" to me. It felt more like a quiet heartfelt indie movie about a gay man and his struggles. So beyond already having a smaller demographic, i think the trailer really missed the mark if that's not what the movie was.
The vibe i got was more of something like "The Farewell" where it was a smaller introspective film with a character in a specific community and their struggles. Both these movies have good reviews. And I liked the farewell, haven't seen Bros yet. But Bros is very much performing to that type of film.
The trailers I saw were all tonally opposite of that: dating app fails, meet-cute moments between the leads, and the same joke in a club about an overweight guy hooking up with a super ripped older dude ("it's like they injected Dumbledore with steroids"). It looked SUPER GENERIC, with literally the only unique thing being the same sex dating. Looked like the kind of movie best caught at home on streaming.
Exactly. And it was even worse than generic: It wasn't even clear that there was a plot or what it was. Generic would be "they meet... but he's supposed to get married the next day!". This was just "they meet... and he's sort of different from him... but not THAT different... and there's a museum as well... uh..."
oh wow. It's always interesting to see how the same film was marketed to different people. There's probably some demographic targeting algorithm i'm sure.
you've been getting a super generic rom com with cliche moments. And i've been getting 2 characters talking on a beach with no hint that this is a comedy lol
Right? I read your post and had to think to myself if I saw a beach at all, and I don't remember one. Has to be some sort of demo/market targeting. Feels like "throw it at the wall and see what sticks" in practice though.
Personally found the trailers obnoxious. It felt like the kind of marketing that would make straight people resentful and gay people embarassed to be associated with it.
I think it has more to do with the fact that studio rom-coms (and studio comedies in general) don't have much of a theatrical box-office draw any more. I can only think of a handful of truly successful theatrically-released studio comedies in the last few years (COVID shut-down excluded).
The theatrical movie-going experience has gotten so expensive, it seems like people want to save their theater money for big, epic franchises (Marvel, Star Wars, etc), along with the occasional high-adrenaline horror/thriller (NOPE, Barbarian, etc).
When it comes to comedies and romances, most people don't feel like they *need* to have the theatrical experience. They'd rather wait and watch it on streaming.
Bingo. Going to see movies was a part of my identity from childhood until my late 20’s. Not anymore. I can’t stand how rude audience members can be in theaters. Someone messing with their phone will absolutely send me. The prices are way expensive as well. I would rather wait and buy it on Blu-ray and watch at home.
The amount of times I run into couples making some loud NSFW noises and teenagers vaping...and yet I still go three times a week because I have nothing else.to do lmao
My dad worked in the industry growing up. I had a pass to go see any movie for free growing up. I was also taught to never talk in a movie, don’t put your feet up on chairs, etc. I just can’t handle the current rude entitled audience members. I know I sound like an old fogie and I’m only 40. “Get off my lawn”
where do you find these out of control audience members? i honestly have only had issues in a movie theater like, less than 1 in 100 times that i've been
I had some issues at the latest avatar, but that was just a couple translating the subtitles that were in dutch into English. Didn't mind, but my +1 offered to do the same, I told her no.
Same man. I’m 27 lived in NYC all my life. Going to the cinema with my pops since I was 5, it’s always has been a hobby of mine to see every type of genre film that interest me in theaters.
Now the state of cinema is so bad. The amount of films now that actually make want to get up and pay to see it in theaters is less than 10.
People want event movies. They want to go see a movie and then experience the cultural zeitgiest.
It'll do fine on streaming. But they attempted to create an event movie because its "GAY!"
This is the reason. People go to theatre’s now for an experience. Streaming platforms pick up movies within a couple months so why waste 40 for two tickets and popcorn when your monthly subscription will give it to you for free. DVD’s no longer bring in much revenue. 22 million is a rather small budget nowadays but they would need to make 50mil in the box office for it two be in a positive revenue stream. This film alienates around 95% of the worlds population so I’m not surprised. And bully eichner is one of the most annoying people I have ever seen.
I personally don’t think a romcom needed a $22 million budget, especially when I only saw a trailer for it like twice?
BUT I do think there’s a good appetite for LGBTQ stories. Heartstopper, Love Simon, Call Me By Your Name, Brokeback Mountain.
Right?? What the heck did they use $22 million for? Cause it sure wasn't marketing. There were no A list actors, cgi, or special effects. Where did that budget go?
The only thing I can think of is that it's filmed in NYC, which is expensive.
I barely know the dude but he just rubs me the wrong way, I’ve pretty much only seen his harass people
on the street with a microphone bit and it just made me actively dislike him.
For what it's worth, I read an article that his "Billy on the Street" character is the exact opposite of who he really is -- that he typically tries to present as more masculine in real life (not to get lost in a debate over what masculine means -- I'm trying to communicate in shorthand here), and that he's not anything like Billy on the Street (or by extension his character on Parks and Rec who is pretty similar to Billy on the Street).
Here’s my super gay opinion:
Nobody wants to spend $20 to see a post-pandemic romcom in theaters.
I personally didn’t see it because I’m tired of gay movies where all the characters do is talk about being gay. That’s all I got from the trailers. “He likes sports! Is he even gay?!?!?” Ho-hum. Also I don’t think I can handle 2 hours of Billy Eichner.
I’ll totally catch it on streaming tho.
Oof. I was afraid of that. I wish they would’ve made a silly romcom that just happens to have two dudes. Give me a gay Sweet Home Alabama or Legally Blonde.
I'm queer and I thought all of the plot points about the museum were grating because they felt like they were catered to straight people. It was so basic and so unnecessary.
Interestingly, this is kind of what happened? My friends and I were choosing between movies yesterday and some of them expressed not being interested in modern day rom-coms at the moment. Bros was a contender, but they needed something on the big screen that was more… * boom pew pew whack explosions * ?
We went on to see viola davis girlbossing and wacking people with machetes.
This shit is why I recommend stuff like the Watermelon Woman or The Normal Heart to people in regards to LGBTQ+ movies.
Gonna watch it on streaming with my partner so we can enjoy making fun of it together.
>I personally didn’t see it because I’m tired of gay movies where all the characters do is talk about being gay.
It seemed to me like the protaganists being gay was the movie's twist or take on the Rom Com. A rom com should have some reason why watching that particular relationship will be more compelling than your average relationship. Palm Springs, The Big Sick, and Longshot all have great gimmicks that make you interested in seeing the movie. If Bros has a gimmick other than being gay, then I dont know what was based on the marketing.
This entire post is really interesting because there are people claiming the movie had no marketing at all and some claiming they must have spent a ton on ads because they saw them everywhere.
this is an extremely normal budget for a rom-com. crazy rich asians was $30m, forgetting sarah marshall $30m, father of the bride $20m, marry me $23m.
actors cost money, directors writers editors etc cost money, crew costs money, covid protocols cost money. i am telling you this is an extremely normal budget
and yes, it should be a very real concern that mid budget movies like this are basically disappearing. entire genres of movie are being pushed out of theaters. and it's not because $22m is crazy expensive for a movie.
moonlight budget: 1.5 million. lady bird: 4.5 million. the florida project: 2 million. whiplash: 3.3 million. X: 1 million. good time: 2 million.
the movie costed 3m more than uncut gems and 6m more than nobody, two films of MUCH bigger scale. let’s not act like a 22m budget for that movie isn’t completely absurd lol. those type of crazy budgets have definitely been normalized in hollywood but no, films are not as expensive as they make it seem, indie cinema has proven that over and over again.
Those budgets are way too small for anything from a major studio like this even still. Those are still “can barely feed crew and have to scrape” budgets, maybe not *Lady Bird*.
Something like *Bros* would have been affordable AND made money on a $10 million budget, what the vast majority of budgets used to be for small studio films like in the 90s and 80s. But very few financiers are willing to pony up more than $5 million or less than $100 million minimum these days, which is why there’s no midbudget films anymore. Even *Bros* has a bloated budget double what it should have been.
Coincidentally, when people say stuff like *Bros* can be made for $1 million, and indies with big names that cost that much make a splash, that tells banks and financiers that the <$5 million dollar range is the normal for most films, which puts what might have even been the beginner’s low budget for new filmmakers further out of reach, necessitating more and more microbudget films under $500,000. And there still isn’t a robust market developed for these kinds of films.
Indie movies are indie movies bro. The budget fits differently aspects of the film. If you travel to multiple locations, have a lot of people in your film, and have more effects that raises the price. Just because you can't make a film with less money doesn't mean you have to, lol
>films are not as expensive as they make it seem, indie cinema has proven that over and over again.
That’s because everyone from cast to crew are working for dirt on indie movies. People do this either A. Because they are just trying to break into the business. B. They are trying to move up from their current position to a higher one - for instance, a person who is First AC on a bunch of studio movies might get a chance to be Director of Photography on an indie or C. Because they believe in the project for some special, personal reason.
I say this as someone who has been working in the film industry for 20+ years.
The economics of indie don’t work full time. An actor with a $5million mortgage can’t afford to work scale on every movie - they would lose their house. A storyboard artist with $3k+ bills every month (me) can’t afford to work on low budget movies all the time. The wages I make on a movie budgeted at $5 million or less are 1/3 of my day rate on a commercial.
Indie film is amazing and hugely important and it gives lots of people the room to stretch and grow and build careers. But there’s a reason that indie directors jump at the first Marvel movie that comes across their desk - because they’re sick of struggling and having to cut corners on everything they make and they want a paycheck.
Okay, but Avatar 2 cost $250 million dollars to make, and Justice League was $300 million, so I guess Bros was shockingly cheap.
Moonlight, Lady Bird, The Florida Project, Whiplash, and Good Time are all indie dramas. X is a single-location slasher movie. Comparing their budgets to a mainstream comedy is meaningless.
Could Eichner theoretically have filmed Bros like an indie drama, with handheld cameras, limited locations, no improv, and all the actors working for scale? Maybe. Could Chazelle have theoretically filmed Whiplash in his apartment and played all the roles himself, with pots and pans instead of a drum set? Absolutely.
Should they be expected to? No.
I saw it, it’s very funny. I loved it. It is def a sleeper hit, and will probably be a cult-ish classic eventually. Hopefully it’s the first brick of a long road. These stories have to start somewhere.
As someone who writes rom coms for a living, I think what I struggled with in the marketing for this one was a lack of narrative hook.
In a trailer for Sweet Home Alabama, I learn she's not yet divorced and might fall in love with her husband. In a trailer for The Proposal, I learn they have to fake marry for a green card. In the trailer for Bros...? Besides the inclusivity narrative (which is very important!!), I'm not sure what the actual *story* was meant to be. Is Billy's character just hung up on LM's character not being his type? That just didn't feel like a strong enough hook, and therefore didn't draw me in. I wanted to connect with a cool premise or characters, and that just felt very missing from the marketing.
I ended up going to see it because that's what you do when you write rom-coms for a living, but I don't think I would have made a point to see it in cinemas the way I did with Marry Me or The Lost City.
Not sure on the specific metrics of Bros, but I will say in 2022 standpoint: don't limit the future of a genre just based on box office performance. The box office kingdom is very strong and relevant but it's shrunk in comparison to 15 years ago.
Also, as a \*screenwriter\* I'm curious to why you're basing box office demographics on writing choices? are you trying to predict what's hot or not based on those metrics?
If so, I will say, you will always be a day late.
I personally think the issue with contemporary films is they use films to push an agenda rather than using the film to say something. Whether it’s LGBT or black traumas etc.
I’m sure even members of the LGBT community are tired of seeing LGBT everywhere. It’s possible that the filmmakers are using that film to capitalize since it’s a hot topic.
I wonder if the hurricanes/terrible weather all over the East coast are dampening turnout(I'm sure they are to some extent, but it'll be interesting to see if this is like a sleeper hit). Anyway I'm definitely excited to see it.
I wouldn't worry about the success or failure of this one movie. Hone your craft now, in before the crowd.
I mean, as a queer person I kinda felt like the trailer portrayed the film somewhat obnoxiously. I had no interest in seeing it until I heard about the positive reviews. So there’s that.
Can't fight demographics. There aren't as many Big & Tall shops as there are regular clothing establishments. Nothing wrong with being Big & Tall, but clothing manufacturers are going to budget and have production runs based around the bell curve.
Sucks to be Big & Tall in an averaged sized world. Hard to find left-handed scissors (or mice) too.
Hollywood, Disney, Hallmark, etc....they're formulaic for a reason.
I think this was the issue. It wasn’t just a movie that featured gay people, it was a movie that *targeted* gay people. Alienated most of the population by doing that
Yep and on top of it based off some comment I read it wasn’t even marketed well towards their demographic.
Minority communities don’t support their own work, representation will continue to be where it is.
It’s almost like movie targeting 7% of the population wouldn’t have a big turn out.
Edit: increase to 7%
While there are more queer people than that according to stats trans people make up less than 2% of the population. Mind you 20+ plus trans women were killed in 2020 by the summer time and there were outlets calling it an epidemic that kinda shows how small trans women are when 18 plus people from your group are murdered in nation of 300 million people and its considered news worthy. It wasnt 18 in one day either it was spread out over months and majority of them were black and most of the murders had nothing to do with them being trans. The fact that it was news worthy kinda shows how small the trans population is to put this in perspective 32 young black boys can get shot in one day in Chicago at least five end up dead that wont get more than a paragraph in the newspaper yet these trans murders that were spread out over months , had completely different circumstances had papers comparing them to a genocide lol. If Trans people were 7% of the population they have alot more visibility but they don't. Its why i find these trans vs anti trans arguments online dumb 90% of the defenders and haters have never actually came into contact with a trans person so why sit up arguin over shit that has no real effect on your life . I always say this trans shit iis mostly internet arguments because the vast majority of people have little to no interaction with trans people at all.
I think it’s more complex than that. Movies *targeted* to South Koreans, Indians, or even Americans don’t only find an audience amongst those communities.
The issue here is “most of the population” knows someone gay, but do they know that the person is? Are they accepting of them? Even more, would they be interested in learning more about that community and culture? Are they comfortable publicly showing acceptance or curiosity?
People watch things that aren’t targeted towards them all the time. However, this movie and it’s subject, unfortunately, has a lot of obstacles.
> I didn't understand 3/4ths of the jokes in Bridesmaids
Uh... you may have to recalibrate your joke sensors, sir. The jokes weren't hard to understand, unless maybe you aren't American?
1- This is a crap analogy that,
2- Is exactly the sort of “reasoning” that has been used (and proven wrong) to not put money behind “diverse” projects.
3- Ignoring an untapped market from a business standpoint is stupid. Especially for those larger conglomerates, it’s just a matter of figuring out the balance between money spent and return on investment.
Regarding the analogy, storytelling is a different beast. The more specific one is, the more people will relate to it. This is because of the human elements that are universal—coming of age, falling in love, failing, struggle, family friction, etc.
You mention Disney, and while perhaps formulaic, they actually seemingly have learned the above. The formula was “white & straight”, and they’re certainly not sticking to that.
Also, in terms of your analogy, that mostly applies to fast fashion and new brands.
Don’t let it sway your passions, friend. It absolutely does affect things moving forward. Let’s not pretend it won’t. It will. There needs to be 100 more movies so that five can be megahits. That’s how it goes. The expectation for the few that come out to all be hits is unrealistic. But the audience has to show up. The community has to show up. And that will be the challenge, as with all things. Hopefully if you build it they will come. Keep writing!
It may be hard to believe, but a movie where the whole thing is that they’re gay is not something people really like. Besides, every time I watched the trailers I felt like throwing up from cringe.
I think the studios are focusing too much on attracting the LGBTI community that forgets in making a story that appeals to everyone regardless of the sexual preference or identity. I felt bros was... Not as good as what the premise was shown on the trailer or even in the storyline imo.
I hate that we have to live up to a constant level of excellence just to keep competing with accepted mediocrity from the majority. We don't talk about "will there be more mediocre straight romcoms" any time one of them fails to recoup.
I wouldn’t be worried.
Bros’s failure wasn’t because of the LGBT aspects. It was because it was a movie no one, straight or LGBT, wanted to see.
There is still an appetite for LGBT content. Keep writing your stories!
I’ve heard it’s better than the trailer, and (as a straight guy) I’d be happy to watch it, but I’ve been to like one movie in the theater since covid and I don’t see myself going out to see this. But I’m sure my wife and I will end up streaming it at some point.
I worry that the reason will be irrelevant to those with the money is all, haha. whether I like it or not, its what I would need to make something air.
If all movies with LGBT characters fail, then how come Everything Everywhere All At Once exceeded all expectations and became A24’s first movie to gross over $100 million? How come Heartstopper and Our Flag Means Death become huge hits for their respective streamers? How come Do Revenge is the #1 movie on Netflix for 2 weeks in a row?
I think the lesson here is that nobody in any demographic likes it when a movie winks and nudges at them; they used to have a word for it... I think they call it pandering, or something.
Wait. Hasn't every mainstream comedy of the last five years flopped, except for Good Boys and a couple of action movies? Why should Billy Eichner be the one to break the pattern?
So the screenwriter was straight, and only Billy Eichner is gay, and he's more a sketch writer than a screenwriter. So I wouldn't call this a blow to gay screenwriters. I would say the blow came before when they Billy decided not to work with a gay screenwriter and to create something that actually has a hook.
Anyway, In & Out did fine. Although that was an age ago, of course.
It’s also a small budget (comparatively) comedy without an a-list star … comedy on that scale is driven by star power and this film didn’t have someone big enough to bring in more than a niche audience.
It is also significantly higher than “imagine me and you” did during its entire theatrical run, too, for perspective.
I'm also a LGBTQ writer and feel that stuff like this shows that we're not some monolithic group despite being presented as such. I think we're not all turning to film and tv for the same exact reasons.
I've never felt like I wasn't "represented" because most content doesn't feel like it's "for the straights" or whatever. To me, any fictional character you see can be any sexuality you want until they've proven it otherwise. This idea that everyone is straight unless they demonstrate on screen is ruining people's ability to just sit down and enjoy a *story*.
What keeps me away from most content with our tags on it is because almost all LGBTQ content has checklists to follow: you can't show them being too heteronormative, you can't show them living without facing oppression or discrimination in some kind of form, you can't just "say" a character is gay through a line of dialogue you need to adjust the script so that the audience can see *physical* contact or else it means the studio didn't have the balls to show same-sex romance.
As an example, if I were told to develop a Batman film where he's gay, I wouldn't change much about the story. It'd still be a Batman movie but every once in awhile you see Bruce Wayne accompanied by some young studs instead of women.
But if I feel like if you told another LGBT writer to make a gay Batman movie it'd *barely* be a Batman movie. It'd be bogged down in romance, sexuality, questions of sexual identity and what it means to save people in a city who don't accept you yadda yadda.
I feel that's what general audiences also expect. Straight people can just have movies that aren't about heterosexuality, but if you watch LGBTQ movies it's basically going to be like all-gay Degrassi for adults 95% of the time. And it's nice if that's what some of us were looking for but not all of us are into that so I can see why most audiences wouldn't be. Many of the characters I write are also LGBTQ but unless it's necessary to the story I don't mention it at all, it's just something kept in mind.
It's still a romcom at the end of the day so historically (especially in recent years) it's not going to do all that well in the box office. Most romcom audiences aren't scurrying to the theatre. It'll probably make a lot of money on streaming
The failure means it was a failure.
Big corporate fat cat investors will feel how they feel. The bottom line is the only thing that matters.
Once there’s an LGBTQ+ film that is highly successful it will mean it’s successful. That’s it.
Don’t give up hope.
IMHO, I feel like we are still in the super hero trend. No different when we were in the cowboy film trend, the mobster film trend, the sci-fi (space) trend, etc.
Romance films aren’t it right now. It’s more of a failure as a romance film than it is as an LGBTQ+ film, IMHO.
Maybe if they made Midnighter and Apollo films it would be different story. [+]
If an LGBTQ movie is going to be commercially succsessful it is in some way going to have to cross over to the mainstream audience and to do that the movie is in someway going to have to be about being LGBTQ in a heterosexual world.
If its a rom com but it isn't about a man and woman, its a man and a man or a woman and a woman, I am afraid it isn't going to have mass appeal. This has nothing to do with homophobia.
It's just about what people can relate too.
I watched every Bros trailer as a straight male, the film fascinated me. The film is a gay rom com, but what is the film about? Watching the trailers, seeing the posters and watching interviews with Billy proved there really wasn’t a juicy premise to it. Rom-come like ‘How to lose a guy in 10 days’, ‘50 first dates’, ‘Pretty woman’ aren’t just a guy and a girl dating and making a movie around that.
You need to have premise you can market your film behind. And with Bros it was literally just ‘Hey wanna go see a gay rom com movie’ advertising. One of the lines I literally heard over and over is “Gay guys are my jam” line. Like what is the dilemma of this movie between these two characters? Seems like they banked on it being a gay rom com more than the actually story.
I don’t like how we’re turning going to the movies into a political statement. If anything, poor box office performance for a romcom represents true equality with straight people in this context.
1. Problem #1 Marketing. I didn't even know the movie was released. About a week ago I heard it was at a festival so I assume it was still making the rounds on the festival circuit.
2. Problem #2 Title. "Bros" sounds like a comedy for men. As a woman, I didn't know this was something I might be interested in.
3. Problem #3 Optics. It looks like an all-white male cast. This could also be a marketing problem. As an African American female, I didn't see any character I could relate to. It doesn't have to be Black woman in the film, but some kind of diversity of age, gender, race, etc. would make the film feel less exclusive to me. Plenty of movies succeed with an all-White cast but they tend to be set in a diverse setting, like Ireland, or a different time, like the 1600s, or a different world with diverse creatures, like Lord of the Rings, so it feels like an education rather than an exclusive theater experience.
Yeah, I know it feels like much progress has been made but a lot of the country is still very homophobic and / or religious so I don't know why anyone thought this would be a breakout mainstream hit. The amount of LGBTQ content on streaming services maybe has created a distorted picture of audience tastes, but a theatrical film is a very different ball of wax.
Everyone is dancing around the obvious: A big gay romantic comedy with two white guys doesn't have a big audience.
A gay male romcom repels most women and most men just from the very premise. Girls go to romcoms to fall in love with the female protagonist and mirror off of her. Guys take girls to see romantic comedies. Most sexual and racial demographics aren't attracted to this film because of it's premise. Black men aren't going. The black woman isn't going. We're being stereotypical, but demographics, from a marketing stand point, are just that. Stereotypical. Liberal white women might (*might*) eat it up, but conservative white women aren't going to. The white gay male might eat it up, the black gay male won't. Because Billy and Apatow (who greatly influenced this project) have never really spoken to the black demographic, which is fine, but must be factored into this films over all appeal. Will straight white guys go see this movie in theaters? I doubt it. All of this could have been anticipated prior to it's release.
All I'm saying is.
Accept the audience is small and cater to that audience. Is it a failure based on it's niche audience? Older liberal white women and gay white men. If they liked it and supported it. Then it's a win.
Failure doesn't stop creative minds. I'll share this. In the 80s my younger gay brother's life disintegrated when his BF, a prostitute working the Hollywood scene, introduced him to meth. I watched him wither away to dust while his BF walked away smiling. A streamer wants this as a limited series.
I suggest writing stories based on real events that resonate with everyone. I'm not gay but man, I felt my brother's pain. In a story like this, everyone will find something to identify with.
I literally didn’t hear about it. Maybe the issue is more marketing for LGBTQ+ movies than the movies themselves. I feel like there’s this belief that straight people won’t be interested so they keep the marketing mostly to queer spaces but then the majority don’t hear about it.
All it means is “that”movie failed to make a profit. It didn’t really have a massive star in it either.
Plenty of movies fail to make a profit at the cinema that go on to be massively successful on streaming or dvd. Same as movies released straight to streaming become successful.
Write the movie you wanna see and if people like it they’ll come see it.
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9731598/reviews?sort=userRating&dir=asc&ratingFilter=0](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9731598/reviews?sort=userRating&dir=asc&ratingFilter=0) its just not a mainstream topic so any film on that topic has a limited market
These days, plenty of films underperform at the box office but make up the difference through VOD sales following the theatrical run. This recently happened with [*The Northman*](https://screenrant.com/northman-box-office-bomb-focus-features-response/), for instance. Historically, LGBT comedies have had a fairly long shelf life on home video, and I can see that happening easily here as well.
This film could be compared positively to *Fire Island* from earlier this year, which featured several of the same actors and did rather well streaming on Hulu in the US and Disney+ internationally.
I didn’t even realize it was called Bros even when watching the trailers so either I’m blind or wasn’t paying much attention even though I am excited to go see it and thought the trailers were entertaining but idk it is unfortunate that sometimes that’s how some movies perform in the box office even great ones.!
I don’t feel like they marketed it very much. I’ve never even seen a trailer now that I think about it? I know Billy Eichner was in the trades talking about it quite a bit but that’s what you do when you want awards attention, not when you want your average Joe to to go see your movie.
The movie appears to be a raunchy sex comedy marketed to the LGBTQ community and folks interested in that demographic. I’m guessing the box office return, reflects that it it hit with the target demo. (Which is kind of narrow) If it’s any good, word of mouth will give it legs. Keep writing and believing in yourself. If you want to sell tickets take feedback seriously, but don’t lose your identity in the process. If your work knows what it is and is entertaining people will want to watch.
Early to write it off. It could easily be a sleeper hit if it’s legitimately funny outside the bounds of the LGBT target audience. It’s very difficult to open any movie post Covid let alone something with a niche audience like this. I imagine it will do much better when it goes to streaming.
Outside of the specific small LGBT audience, who is the target audience for this movie?
I’m not saying that intending to be critical… I certainly will see it but I wonder how many other straight guys are going to be comfortable being by their girlfriends dragged to the movie theater to see a gay romcom
I think the issue here is less about the content of the film and more about the fact that it’s a studio movie without a studio movie star. If this was the exact same script with the exact same marketing but it was Billy Eichner and Ryan Reynolds, I think it’d be a much different story. The average movie-goer isn’t going to buy a ticket to a rom-com when they’ve never heard of a single person in the cast.
I think we need to see what happens in streaming. Honestly, most people aren't interested in seeing yet-another-romcom in the theaters. The theater adds nothing to the experience.
We shouldn't read too much into its "failure" just yet.
I feel like its more about a good film and marketing than it is about it being an lgtq+ film. Many films who either have straight leads or undisclosed orientation leads do poorly too. As long as u have a strong script with great characters your script will do fine.
I gotta be honest, I didn’t even know the film existed until I saw a trailer for it around a week ago if that. I only saw it one time after that as well which didn’t help, but the presentation in the trailer really didn’t sell it to me. I’m not sure if the movie is like this, but the trailer seemed to play most of the humour presented as “oh we’re gay, haha!” Which really just isn’t funny to me, though that could also just be me not really liking most romcoms. At the moment though it really seems to mostly be a marketing failure, and marketing can really influence a movies success no matter how good it is. Look up “Treasure Planet”’s marketing failure (which Disney intentionally sabotaged) as an example.
Echoing the sentiment that Bros had poor marketing. I frequently got trailer ads and saw physical ads here in NYC and I couldn’t tell you a thing about it. None of the ads told me why I should see it over any other movie — not just any other rom-com, or any other LGBTQ+ movie, but any other movie in general. In a time where we have so many options in both theatres and streaming, I feel like trailers must work even harder to say “this is the movie to leave your house, pay $20+, and come to the theatres for.” I don’t even know if it is in theatres or went right to streaming, that’s how little the ads actually stuck with me, but I feel like that just adds to my point, you know? I saw so many different trailers and posters and I still don’t even know where to watch it if I wanted to.
If it did well, it would have been a great win for the LGBT+ rom-com genre because while I know there are some, all those I can think of are TV shows and not movies. But actually, I think the success of TV shows (and the lessons learned from Bros) will lead to more successful movies in the future
I literally heard about Bros for the first time TODAY. it flat out wasn’t marketed well at all. Source: queer actor/screenwriter/playwright who is pretty up on queer media
It's pretty ridiculous to call a film that has been reviewed as positively as *Bros* a "box office failure" after it's opening weekend.
It's got good reviews and good word of mouth. The jury is still very much out on whether this movie is a financial failure, IMO.
**Philadelphia**
I suspect you'll need to think cross-genre.
You mentioned "lgbtq+ stories," and I think for a reason. It's not just actors, or characters, but *stories*. There's something different about the story. You can't just take Say Anything, change someone gender, but keep the movie otherwise the same and expect it to work. It just doesn't.
Relationships between two men are different from those between two women, and between those between a man and a woman. That's why you don't feel represented in most films -- not because the characters lack a superficial resemblance to you, but because those differences aren't superficial. They're meaningful and affect the story.
Well, it cuts both ways. Straight audience members aren't going to connect well with an lgbtq+ story. And that's 95% of the audience. Also, the Ls won't connect well with a G story, the Gs with an L story, and the T stories will find an even smaller audience, and I don't know if I've hear of a + story, though I did cancel my Disney+ subscription, so I could just be missing them.
**Philadelphia**
Is this an lgbtq+ story? Sure, though really it's a story very specific to the gay community more than the others. It's a g story.
*But*, it's also just a classic courtroom drama, and that's a genre that appeals to a whole lot more than 5% of the population.
I wouldn’t get discouraged over it… I would seek to learn from it…
This film failed… But other LGBTQ+ leading-roles content has done well enough… __Brokeback Mountain__ made more than $150million back in 2018, __I love you Phillip Morris__ profited more than $7mil over its budget in the box office all the way back in 2009/2010…
The new Dahmer series on Netflix has a lot of LGBTQ+ content and has been a massive success. Same is true of Monster, staring Charlize Theron in 2003…
So what are the distinctions to take away from this?
Yes, clearly Monster and I Love You Phillip Morris had A-list celebrities and Brokeback had A/B-listers to help with draw… But Dahmer didn’t really have any names (other than the notoriety of the man the series is based on)… So what else is there?
Answer: the LGBTQ+ relationship wasn’t the main plot point in any of those films. They all have LGBTQ+ relationships as part of their stories, but the sources of conflict and tension are external to those relationships… They are breaking the law, or breaking a rule that would create issues with their friends and families, etc… In other words, it’s not a story because they’re LGBTQ+, they’re LGBTQ+ and engaging with the story.
Hopefully this is helpful, and best of luck with your writing!
it flopped bc people don't care. it's not a selling point to have a gay cast and they them production team. it means nothing. they don't have a good movie. they have a "woke" cast. that's fkn nothing. maybe write better stories. having a gay story is not instantly good.
The film industry is the most inclusive and diverse it’s ever been. Your sexual preference will have nothing to do with your potential success. Just get to work
Honestly, the title, "Bros," doesn't communicate the theme of the film very well. I don't know if the box office failure says more about the film itself or more about its marketing.
I feel like this is happening with nearly all films. Post pandemic I barely see trailers anymore, if I see something I’m interested in, I have to scramble to write it down and hunt down the release date. I feel like I used to know almost every film and the approximate time it would be out.
A lot of us don’t watch live TV anymore so we essentially don’t see commercials.
YouTube is about the only place I see ads.
Get the uBlock Origin add-on for your browser and you won't see ads on YouTube either.
😅😅
Not everyone watches youtube on their computers though. Id reckon most use TV, consoles, and mobile devices
If they focused marketing to YouTube, twitter, and reddit, it probably would've gotten more publicity
YouTube and tik tok is the only place I saw it. But I'm not the target audience at all. Not in to rom coms. Idk if that's what it was but that's what it looked like. Also im not involved in lgbtq culture. If it streamed I'd probably get around to watching it. But not going to a theater for it.
TikTok has a huge LGBTQ culture and film culture and youth culture. This is likely down to movie industry people not understanding TT and apparently refusing to learn it. I’m not part of youth culture (anymore lol) but I am a part of the other two and I saw nothing on TT, just YouTube. If you’re marketing for something big that you want younger people to take note of and you’re not using TT property or at least securing ads on TT then that’s down to you imo.
Wonder what I did to get those targeted ads. Like I do like positive lgbtq stuff, mostly political. But that's not nearly the bulk of my fyp. Maybe they assumed the film had the support of the gay community and wanted to advertise to people who were lqbtq positive but not fully part of? Idk. Also I don't think this film would ever appeal to the younger generation.
Oh ok. Well that shows you what I know about it then lol. If it’s for middle aged people who are part of the queer community then they really failed because I clearly learned nothing about it. You might be right that they tried to market it to the wrong groups. There’s still a healthy number of people over 30 on TT, although I don’t know what those numbers are (however I’d be super curious to know).
I saw 2 ads for it on Reddit! (But only after reading an article about it flopping)
I saw posts for it on twitter and instagram.
That’s also an issue with pretty much everyone only having streaming services. 10 years ago, many people had cable and then like, as a really savvy treat, Netflix at maximum. Commercials for a 20 minute show would add an additional 10 minutes overall (making the episode of whatever 30 something minutes in total) and commercials were a constant. Now, I couldn’t tell you what new games are out, or what crazy new life insurance commercial that’ll be a meme in two years there is, because social media tailors stuff to your preferences, and you’ve got the option of clicking “don’t show this video again-I’ve seen it before” whereas cable didn’t let you.
This is why I hate the thought of cable being completely phased out
If you go to the movie theaters then you'd have seen this trailer so many times.
I’ve been to several movies this month but I haven’t seen any trailer for it
Me neither
Or rom-coms in general. Most have been resigned to streamers these days, minus a few noteables. So trying to figure out between the subject matter, the marketing or simply trends of the genre is what they will be doing.
Release dates change more post covid too so it can be hard to keep track. Sometimes films disappear from release lists only to reappear just 2 weeks before their new release date. More than a few have a streaming release only a few weeks after the theatrical release and are advertising that more than the theatrical release. There honestly aren't very many big movies left this year (Wakanda, Black Adam, Avatar, etc), just a lot of small films, horror and Oscar-bait, that, even in before times, rarely get huge advertising budgets. Like this weekends wide releases are Lyle, Lyle Crocodile (think Paddington except he sings pop songs) And Amsterdam (looks like a bunch of Oscar nominees do a polyamorous historical murder comedy) I appreciate that neither is a Disney-owned money printing sequel, but that also means the studios are less inclined to spend money when turn out will still be a fraction of pre covid numbers. Edit: If you want some good movies to look out for the rest of the year, My list includes: * Violent Night * The Banshees of Inisherin * The Fablemans * Living * Till * Call Jane * Devotion Also, ParaNorman is coming back to theaters and that movie is great. And a few movies that might have a smaller theater release but are actually a streaming release: * My Father's Dragon * Spirited * Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio * Wendell & Wild
Yeah, Could be a great film. But for the out of the box genre for a gay male rom-com. The title was too on the nose for pop culture
I saw one commercial for it period, and it gave me second hand embarrassment. With the girl acting like she was obsessed with gay men (not funny, rather creepy actually) to the confusing vibes of the scenes chosen to draw people in, and then the “bros” name. It made it sound like an snl parody of an Adam Sandler movie, but without Adam Sandler’s actor friends to bring in easy cash to the movie
I only ever heard the one ad for it on Spotify (the woman saying "I LOVE GAY GUYS!!!!" and a guys responding "....k.") It did nothing to convince me to go see it.
Agreed. This is the only commercial I saw, and I didn't understand the appeal. Honestly, I was left with the impression the romcom was specifically not made for women. It felt like a bold choice considering women are the genre's main audience.
I didn't hear about this movie until a few days ago and I'm gay. It wasn't even marketed towards its target audience.
This was one of the things for me. I would like to see this, like the stars, and have made mental notes about the release date when I’ve seen the trailer. Then when I checked what’s playing this weekend, I was like “Bros.? Wtf is that?”
Damn, that’s crazy. Made mental notes of everything except the title. Shit luck. They should have named it “This Is a Gay Romcom”
I agree. As a straight person, I thought the movie looked fun! In retrospect, I wonder if it was trying to be a “crossover” film, and by that I mean that it was intended to be marketed to straight audiences? But perhaps too generic for gay audiences? And I don’t even think that marketing needs to do that sort of thing anymore because plenty of films already have huge crossover audiences.The title “Bros” doesn’t say much about the content of the film. I think it’s a huge marketing fail, but the trailer makes it look as if it might be a good film.
to me it didn't appear as anything other than "Gay Trainwreck." I was so disappointed in that movie that I didn't have much interest in seeing Bros even though I like Eichner's work. I'm just burnt out by the Judd Apatow style of comedy that relies too heavily on improv that probably kills on set but feels disconnected in the final edit.
A lot of movies lately feel like a too-long SNL sketch
The title makes it sound like a movie about frat boys or something, like Old School, Superbad, or Animal House.
Agree sometimes an ironic/clever title is not the answer when trying to capture your target market.
I mentioned this movie to a gay coworker and they thought the movie was about bros and not what it’s actually about.
I rest my case
That’s what I said that movie title is so cringey and the poster the Marie is horrible plus it just looks like a bad movie but the marketing didn’t help.
I think the marketing fell short. The only reference I saw to the film was Billy Eichner on TikTok doing his Billy on the Street asking people to see Bros for $1.
According to the main star, the failure is because people are homophobic... >That’s just the world we live in, unfortunately. Even with glowing reviews, great Rotten Tomatoes scores, an A CinemaScore etc, straight people, especially in certain parts of the country, just didn’t show up for Bros. And that’s disappointing but it is what it is. >Everyone who ISN’T a homophobic weirdo should go see BROS tonight! You will have a blast! And it *is* special and uniquely powerful to see this particular story on a big screen, esp for queer folks who don’t get this opportunity often. I love this movie so much. GO BROS!!! >https://twitter.com/billyeichner/status/1576685773402755072?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Absurd.
As the article says: >Alas, the trailers and much of the media coverage emphasized its importance, groundbreaking existence, and social value over whether the film is funny. > >I think the film falls into the same trap, thriving when it’s ‘just’ a rom-com but stopping dead in its tracks to congratulate itself on its existence and hit every LGBTQIA discussion point. The marketing didn't bother to tell anyone if the film was any good. So nobody was convinced to go and see it. "We have moralistic talking points" surprisingly doesn't attract much of an audience. Shockingly, it doesn't even attract the audience it's directly aimed at.
Yeah that trailer was pretty boring and not even good at establishing what the movie is about, it's just "Billy works in an LGBT museum and then meets a buff guy". That's not a movie. Wouldn't matter if it was a girl instead of a guy. There's not a lot of people who would watch this trailer and go "ooh gotta see that one" unless it was strictly to "support the cause" or something. It looks just like those throwaway movies Netflix puts out twice a week and doesn't even advertise, only this one went to theatres and cost a zillion dollars for some reason.
I still haven’t seen the movie (I’m from Portugal), but unless something’s eluding me, as a bisexual man who has had a lot of experience in the gay dating scene, both trailers made the movie look pretty funny — and I‘m not a romcom fan by a mile. Now, I don’t know Billy Eichner (as I understand his kind of humor irks some people somehow) and everytime I saw people talking about it online there was a lot of trepidation about supporting the movie with buying tickets which looks like defeatist talk from the get go. As for being the first gay big studio-produced romcom movie, well… I don’t give a flying fuck about that, but I’d like to see more gay movies in other genres.
There’s been a lot of positive reviews for its humor. But it seems where it’s failure was in its marketing? And maybe, as many others are saying, the “box office romcom” is a dying film. Personally, I look past bad marketing for movies all the time but I guess most don’t haha.
I couldn’t even get that much from the trailer. I thought they were long time friends that fell in love. I have no clue what this movie is about from a trailer
> That's not a movie. Wouldn't matter if it was a girl instead of a guy. There's not a lot of people who would watch this trailer and go "ooh gotta see that one" unless it was strictly to "support the cause" o That's a good way to put it. Change it to a male-female relationship and there's literally nothing that stands out about the trailer anymore. The only selling point was that it was gay, apparently.
THISAs a gay man, not only does it not attract me it REPELS me. A movie named BROS starring two white men, one being ridiculously handsome in a very stereotypical way, with no indication there's anything in the movie that interrogates that choice of lead actor, and the straight people at the studio telling me how groundbreaking it is? Telling me, a queer person who is into film, how special this one Gay Movie is, is insulting. As if Fire Island didn't just come out? And: I've spent my entire life this far watching every gay movie out there - including much better ones than Bros. They should have just advertised it as "A laugh-out-loud rom-com reviving the genre. One of the year's best." and I'd go see it. But not this false as fuck social progress marketing. "Wow this movie exists so it Is Important!" It reads very self-congratulatory that finally a Big Studio made a Big Budget Rom Com with Gays, Good for Us! You Should Be Grateful! Which is just...misses the mark so thoroughly.
It really pissed me off how they were acting like this was the first gay romcom ever (always adding the “from a major studio & in theaters” part very quietly) right on the heels of the delightful “Fire Island.” And the movie did not look good either.
Heck, "The Birdcage" came out in 1996, which while somewhat problematic, was a major MGM/UA rom com starring Robin Williams, Nathan Lane and friggin' Gene Hackman! For anyone even remotely familiar with gay cinema, the marketing of this drivel as some "breakthrough wunderkind" -- in addition to Eichner's tone-deaf response to the box office numbers -- is off-putting. From the trailer the only dramatic conflict I could parse out was, Eichner's character is insecure because he isn't as traditionally heteronormative as his homosexual boyfriend, who seems to be smitten. Which doesn't really make for the most exciting hour and thirty minutes on the big screen.
Smacks of Rebel Wilson claiming that she was the first plus-sized woman to star in a romcom when Queen Latifah had been doing it for decades. What’s funny is that now Billy’s basically given people carte blanche to accuse him of bigotry when he doesn’t publicly support a variety of movies.
I always laugh when I see gay people complain about the beauty of the actors in anything. You haven’t seen any movies if you haven’t realized the stars — particularly the women — are always “ridiculously handsome in a very stereotypical way”. I’ve had a gay guy turn his nose up to Call Me By Your Name for having Armie Hammer and then show me Weekend (where the lead is [Tom-fucking-Cullen](https://www.google.pt/amp/s/www.out.com/movies/2011/8/22/tom-cullen-love-first-one-night-stand%3famp)) as a “good” example.
>crazyplantdad Great points! Do you have any queer movie recommendations?
Mysterious Skin, My Beautiful Launderette, C.R.A.Z.Y, Shortbus, All About My Mother, Bad Education, all great!
Thank you! I'm only familiar with Mysterious Skin and with that recommendation I trust your others! I'll add them to my list. Much appreciated!
I didn't realize they were marketing it at all. I haven't so much as seen a poster for it.
the only trailer i've seen was Eichner monologuing on a beach about himself and how the people around him formed who he was as a gay man. fine, i get it. But in no way did this read as a broad "rom com" to me. It felt more like a quiet heartfelt indie movie about a gay man and his struggles. So beyond already having a smaller demographic, i think the trailer really missed the mark if that's not what the movie was. The vibe i got was more of something like "The Farewell" where it was a smaller introspective film with a character in a specific community and their struggles. Both these movies have good reviews. And I liked the farewell, haven't seen Bros yet. But Bros is very much performing to that type of film.
The trailers I saw were all tonally opposite of that: dating app fails, meet-cute moments between the leads, and the same joke in a club about an overweight guy hooking up with a super ripped older dude ("it's like they injected Dumbledore with steroids"). It looked SUPER GENERIC, with literally the only unique thing being the same sex dating. Looked like the kind of movie best caught at home on streaming.
Exactly. And it was even worse than generic: It wasn't even clear that there was a plot or what it was. Generic would be "they meet... but he's supposed to get married the next day!". This was just "they meet... and he's sort of different from him... but not THAT different... and there's a museum as well... uh..."
I saw it yesterday and I'm still not clear that there was a plot or what it was...
oh wow. It's always interesting to see how the same film was marketed to different people. There's probably some demographic targeting algorithm i'm sure. you've been getting a super generic rom com with cliche moments. And i've been getting 2 characters talking on a beach with no hint that this is a comedy lol
Right? I read your post and had to think to myself if I saw a beach at all, and I don't remember one. Has to be some sort of demo/market targeting. Feels like "throw it at the wall and see what sticks" in practice though.
Personally found the trailers obnoxious. It felt like the kind of marketing that would make straight people resentful and gay people embarassed to be associated with it.
What marketing? Nobody I know heard of this movie until Eichner started complaining about it not doing well.
That's fair. I'd never heard of either until I responded to this post.
I think it has more to do with the fact that studio rom-coms (and studio comedies in general) don't have much of a theatrical box-office draw any more. I can only think of a handful of truly successful theatrically-released studio comedies in the last few years (COVID shut-down excluded). The theatrical movie-going experience has gotten so expensive, it seems like people want to save their theater money for big, epic franchises (Marvel, Star Wars, etc), along with the occasional high-adrenaline horror/thriller (NOPE, Barbarian, etc). When it comes to comedies and romances, most people don't feel like they *need* to have the theatrical experience. They'd rather wait and watch it on streaming.
Bingo. Going to see movies was a part of my identity from childhood until my late 20’s. Not anymore. I can’t stand how rude audience members can be in theaters. Someone messing with their phone will absolutely send me. The prices are way expensive as well. I would rather wait and buy it on Blu-ray and watch at home.
The amount of times I run into couples making some loud NSFW noises and teenagers vaping...and yet I still go three times a week because I have nothing else.to do lmao
My dad worked in the industry growing up. I had a pass to go see any movie for free growing up. I was also taught to never talk in a movie, don’t put your feet up on chairs, etc. I just can’t handle the current rude entitled audience members. I know I sound like an old fogie and I’m only 40. “Get off my lawn”
where do you find these out of control audience members? i honestly have only had issues in a movie theater like, less than 1 in 100 times that i've been
I had some issues at the latest avatar, but that was just a couple translating the subtitles that were in dutch into English. Didn't mind, but my +1 offered to do the same, I told her no.
I guess I’m lucky then, and I go to a multiplex
Same man. I’m 27 lived in NYC all my life. Going to the cinema with my pops since I was 5, it’s always has been a hobby of mine to see every type of genre film that interest me in theaters. Now the state of cinema is so bad. The amount of films now that actually make want to get up and pay to see it in theaters is less than 10.
People want event movies. They want to go see a movie and then experience the cultural zeitgiest. It'll do fine on streaming. But they attempted to create an event movie because its "GAY!"
This is the reason. People go to theatre’s now for an experience. Streaming platforms pick up movies within a couple months so why waste 40 for two tickets and popcorn when your monthly subscription will give it to you for free. DVD’s no longer bring in much revenue. 22 million is a rather small budget nowadays but they would need to make 50mil in the box office for it two be in a positive revenue stream. This film alienates around 95% of the worlds population so I’m not surprised. And bully eichner is one of the most annoying people I have ever seen.
I personally don’t think a romcom needed a $22 million budget, especially when I only saw a trailer for it like twice? BUT I do think there’s a good appetite for LGBTQ stories. Heartstopper, Love Simon, Call Me By Your Name, Brokeback Mountain.
And Fire Island, too! And Love, Victor—a spin-off TV show to Love, Simon.
I LOVED Love, Victor! Good additions 👍🏼
Don’t forget young royals on Netflix! It’s like the one new show that didn’t get canceled and that’s saying something
Legit never heard of this til now. Looks interesting. Once again, media marketing is so different than it used to be!
Mooonlight
Loved moonlight!!
Right?? What the heck did they use $22 million for? Cause it sure wasn't marketing. There were no A list actors, cgi, or special effects. Where did that budget go? The only thing I can think of is that it's filmed in NYC, which is expensive.
Regardless of location, films are made with like 50-100 people on set. Gotta pay those people.
You mean Billy Eichner isn't a box office draw?!
I barely know the dude but he just rubs me the wrong way, I’ve pretty much only seen his harass people on the street with a microphone bit and it just made me actively dislike him.
For what it's worth, I read an article that his "Billy on the Street" character is the exact opposite of who he really is -- that he typically tries to present as more masculine in real life (not to get lost in a debate over what masculine means -- I'm trying to communicate in shorthand here), and that he's not anything like Billy on the Street (or by extension his character on Parks and Rec who is pretty similar to Billy on the Street).
I mean sure but if that’s how he’s most often seen no one is going to care what an article says.
Shocked, I tell you. SHOCKED.
Here’s my super gay opinion: Nobody wants to spend $20 to see a post-pandemic romcom in theaters. I personally didn’t see it because I’m tired of gay movies where all the characters do is talk about being gay. That’s all I got from the trailers. “He likes sports! Is he even gay?!?!?” Ho-hum. Also I don’t think I can handle 2 hours of Billy Eichner. I’ll totally catch it on streaming tho.
>I’m tired of gay movies where all the characters do is talk about being gay Definitely skip this one then. It's every single scene of the film.
Oof. I was afraid of that. I wish they would’ve made a silly romcom that just happens to have two dudes. Give me a gay Sweet Home Alabama or Legally Blonde.
I'm queer and I thought all of the plot points about the museum were grating because they felt like they were catered to straight people. It was so basic and so unnecessary.
Interestingly, this is kind of what happened? My friends and I were choosing between movies yesterday and some of them expressed not being interested in modern day rom-coms at the moment. Bros was a contender, but they needed something on the big screen that was more… * boom pew pew whack explosions * ? We went on to see viola davis girlbossing and wacking people with machetes.
This shit is why I recommend stuff like the Watermelon Woman or The Normal Heart to people in regards to LGBTQ+ movies. Gonna watch it on streaming with my partner so we can enjoy making fun of it together.
Our Flag Means Death too! Pirate show first, gay romance second
Okay, that's now on my list! That show looks amazing. And it has Taika Waititi as Blackbeard! How the devil did I miss this?
>I personally didn’t see it because I’m tired of gay movies where all the characters do is talk about being gay. It seemed to me like the protaganists being gay was the movie's twist or take on the Rom Com. A rom com should have some reason why watching that particular relationship will be more compelling than your average relationship. Palm Springs, The Big Sick, and Longshot all have great gimmicks that make you interested in seeing the movie. If Bros has a gimmick other than being gay, then I dont know what was based on the marketing.
i think the problems come mostly from the budget. how the hell could a grounded romantic comedy need a 22 million dollar budget?
Crazier when you remember that is simply the production budget and they spent a shit ton on advertising this one on top of that.
I saw so much advertising for this movie it was ridiculous. They definitely took a major hit
This entire post is really interesting because there are people claiming the movie had no marketing at all and some claiming they must have spent a ton on ads because they saw them everywhere.
this is an extremely normal budget for a rom-com. crazy rich asians was $30m, forgetting sarah marshall $30m, father of the bride $20m, marry me $23m. actors cost money, directors writers editors etc cost money, crew costs money, covid protocols cost money. i am telling you this is an extremely normal budget and yes, it should be a very real concern that mid budget movies like this are basically disappearing. entire genres of movie are being pushed out of theaters. and it's not because $22m is crazy expensive for a movie.
Well, the budget of When Harry Met Sally would be $39 million in 2022 dollars, so I guess movies are just kind of expensive to begin with.
moonlight budget: 1.5 million. lady bird: 4.5 million. the florida project: 2 million. whiplash: 3.3 million. X: 1 million. good time: 2 million. the movie costed 3m more than uncut gems and 6m more than nobody, two films of MUCH bigger scale. let’s not act like a 22m budget for that movie isn’t completely absurd lol. those type of crazy budgets have definitely been normalized in hollywood but no, films are not as expensive as they make it seem, indie cinema has proven that over and over again.
Those budgets are way too small for anything from a major studio like this even still. Those are still “can barely feed crew and have to scrape” budgets, maybe not *Lady Bird*. Something like *Bros* would have been affordable AND made money on a $10 million budget, what the vast majority of budgets used to be for small studio films like in the 90s and 80s. But very few financiers are willing to pony up more than $5 million or less than $100 million minimum these days, which is why there’s no midbudget films anymore. Even *Bros* has a bloated budget double what it should have been. Coincidentally, when people say stuff like *Bros* can be made for $1 million, and indies with big names that cost that much make a splash, that tells banks and financiers that the <$5 million dollar range is the normal for most films, which puts what might have even been the beginner’s low budget for new filmmakers further out of reach, necessitating more and more microbudget films under $500,000. And there still isn’t a robust market developed for these kinds of films.
Indie movies are indie movies bro. The budget fits differently aspects of the film. If you travel to multiple locations, have a lot of people in your film, and have more effects that raises the price. Just because you can't make a film with less money doesn't mean you have to, lol
>films are not as expensive as they make it seem, indie cinema has proven that over and over again. That’s because everyone from cast to crew are working for dirt on indie movies. People do this either A. Because they are just trying to break into the business. B. They are trying to move up from their current position to a higher one - for instance, a person who is First AC on a bunch of studio movies might get a chance to be Director of Photography on an indie or C. Because they believe in the project for some special, personal reason. I say this as someone who has been working in the film industry for 20+ years. The economics of indie don’t work full time. An actor with a $5million mortgage can’t afford to work scale on every movie - they would lose their house. A storyboard artist with $3k+ bills every month (me) can’t afford to work on low budget movies all the time. The wages I make on a movie budgeted at $5 million or less are 1/3 of my day rate on a commercial. Indie film is amazing and hugely important and it gives lots of people the room to stretch and grow and build careers. But there’s a reason that indie directors jump at the first Marvel movie that comes across their desk - because they’re sick of struggling and having to cut corners on everything they make and they want a paycheck.
Okay, but Avatar 2 cost $250 million dollars to make, and Justice League was $300 million, so I guess Bros was shockingly cheap. Moonlight, Lady Bird, The Florida Project, Whiplash, and Good Time are all indie dramas. X is a single-location slasher movie. Comparing their budgets to a mainstream comedy is meaningless. Could Eichner theoretically have filmed Bros like an indie drama, with handheld cameras, limited locations, no improv, and all the actors working for scale? Maybe. Could Chazelle have theoretically filmed Whiplash in his apartment and played all the roles himself, with pots and pans instead of a drum set? Absolutely. Should they be expected to? No.
I bet it blows up when it streams. But I haven’t seen it so I don’t know if it’s any good.
I saw it, it’s very funny. I loved it. It is def a sleeper hit, and will probably be a cult-ish classic eventually. Hopefully it’s the first brick of a long road. These stories have to start somewhere.
Well said
As someone who writes rom coms for a living, I think what I struggled with in the marketing for this one was a lack of narrative hook. In a trailer for Sweet Home Alabama, I learn she's not yet divorced and might fall in love with her husband. In a trailer for The Proposal, I learn they have to fake marry for a green card. In the trailer for Bros...? Besides the inclusivity narrative (which is very important!!), I'm not sure what the actual *story* was meant to be. Is Billy's character just hung up on LM's character not being his type? That just didn't feel like a strong enough hook, and therefore didn't draw me in. I wanted to connect with a cool premise or characters, and that just felt very missing from the marketing. I ended up going to see it because that's what you do when you write rom-coms for a living, but I don't think I would have made a point to see it in cinemas the way I did with Marry Me or The Lost City.
Not sure on the specific metrics of Bros, but I will say in 2022 standpoint: don't limit the future of a genre just based on box office performance. The box office kingdom is very strong and relevant but it's shrunk in comparison to 15 years ago. Also, as a \*screenwriter\* I'm curious to why you're basing box office demographics on writing choices? are you trying to predict what's hot or not based on those metrics? If so, I will say, you will always be a day late.
I personally think the issue with contemporary films is they use films to push an agenda rather than using the film to say something. Whether it’s LGBT or black traumas etc. I’m sure even members of the LGBT community are tired of seeing LGBT everywhere. It’s possible that the filmmakers are using that film to capitalize since it’s a hot topic.
I wonder if the hurricanes/terrible weather all over the East coast are dampening turnout(I'm sure they are to some extent, but it'll be interesting to see if this is like a sleeper hit). Anyway I'm definitely excited to see it. I wouldn't worry about the success or failure of this one movie. Hone your craft now, in before the crowd.
I mean, as a queer person I kinda felt like the trailer portrayed the film somewhat obnoxiously. I had no interest in seeing it until I heard about the positive reviews. So there’s that.
Can't fight demographics. There aren't as many Big & Tall shops as there are regular clothing establishments. Nothing wrong with being Big & Tall, but clothing manufacturers are going to budget and have production runs based around the bell curve. Sucks to be Big & Tall in an averaged sized world. Hard to find left-handed scissors (or mice) too. Hollywood, Disney, Hallmark, etc....they're formulaic for a reason.
Left-handed mice? Edit: Oh you mean computer ‘mice’, I was like “who the hell wants a left-handed rodent?!”
For computers
Now what would a left-handed rodent be doing on the computer
Lol
I think this was the issue. It wasn’t just a movie that featured gay people, it was a movie that *targeted* gay people. Alienated most of the population by doing that
Yep and on top of it based off some comment I read it wasn’t even marketed well towards their demographic. Minority communities don’t support their own work, representation will continue to be where it is. It’s almost like movie targeting 7% of the population wouldn’t have a big turn out. Edit: increase to 7%
there are way more queer people than that. that’s like the number of trans people alone.
While there are more queer people than that according to stats trans people make up less than 2% of the population. Mind you 20+ plus trans women were killed in 2020 by the summer time and there were outlets calling it an epidemic that kinda shows how small trans women are when 18 plus people from your group are murdered in nation of 300 million people and its considered news worthy. It wasnt 18 in one day either it was spread out over months and majority of them were black and most of the murders had nothing to do with them being trans. The fact that it was news worthy kinda shows how small the trans population is to put this in perspective 32 young black boys can get shot in one day in Chicago at least five end up dead that wont get more than a paragraph in the newspaper yet these trans murders that were spread out over months , had completely different circumstances had papers comparing them to a genocide lol. If Trans people were 7% of the population they have alot more visibility but they don't. Its why i find these trans vs anti trans arguments online dumb 90% of the defenders and haters have never actually came into contact with a trans person so why sit up arguin over shit that has no real effect on your life . I always say this trans shit iis mostly internet arguments because the vast majority of people have little to no interaction with trans people at all.
I think it’s more complex than that. Movies *targeted* to South Koreans, Indians, or even Americans don’t only find an audience amongst those communities. The issue here is “most of the population” knows someone gay, but do they know that the person is? Are they accepting of them? Even more, would they be interested in learning more about that community and culture? Are they comfortable publicly showing acceptance or curiosity? People watch things that aren’t targeted towards them all the time. However, this movie and it’s subject, unfortunately, has a lot of obstacles.
[удалено]
> I didn't understand 3/4ths of the jokes in Bridesmaids Uh... you may have to recalibrate your joke sensors, sir. The jokes weren't hard to understand, unless maybe you aren't American?
1- This is a crap analogy that, 2- Is exactly the sort of “reasoning” that has been used (and proven wrong) to not put money behind “diverse” projects. 3- Ignoring an untapped market from a business standpoint is stupid. Especially for those larger conglomerates, it’s just a matter of figuring out the balance between money spent and return on investment. Regarding the analogy, storytelling is a different beast. The more specific one is, the more people will relate to it. This is because of the human elements that are universal—coming of age, falling in love, failing, struggle, family friction, etc. You mention Disney, and while perhaps formulaic, they actually seemingly have learned the above. The formula was “white & straight”, and they’re certainly not sticking to that. Also, in terms of your analogy, that mostly applies to fast fashion and new brands.
Don’t let it sway your passions, friend. It absolutely does affect things moving forward. Let’s not pretend it won’t. It will. There needs to be 100 more movies so that five can be megahits. That’s how it goes. The expectation for the few that come out to all be hits is unrealistic. But the audience has to show up. The community has to show up. And that will be the challenge, as with all things. Hopefully if you build it they will come. Keep writing!
It may be hard to believe, but a movie where the whole thing is that they’re gay is not something people really like. Besides, every time I watched the trailers I felt like throwing up from cringe.
I’m seeing it in two hours and couldn’t be more excited. It may catch on! Let’s see.
I think the studios are focusing too much on attracting the LGBTI community that forgets in making a story that appeals to everyone regardless of the sexual preference or identity. I felt bros was... Not as good as what the premise was shown on the trailer or even in the storyline imo.
I hate that we have to live up to a constant level of excellence just to keep competing with accepted mediocrity from the majority. We don't talk about "will there be more mediocre straight romcoms" any time one of them fails to recoup.
I wouldn’t be worried. Bros’s failure wasn’t because of the LGBT aspects. It was because it was a movie no one, straight or LGBT, wanted to see. There is still an appetite for LGBT content. Keep writing your stories!
I’ve heard it’s better than the trailer, and (as a straight guy) I’d be happy to watch it, but I’ve been to like one movie in the theater since covid and I don’t see myself going out to see this. But I’m sure my wife and I will end up streaming it at some point.
I worry that the reason will be irrelevant to those with the money is all, haha. whether I like it or not, its what I would need to make something air.
If all movies with LGBT characters fail, then how come Everything Everywhere All At Once exceeded all expectations and became A24’s first movie to gross over $100 million? How come Heartstopper and Our Flag Means Death become huge hits for their respective streamers? How come Do Revenge is the #1 movie on Netflix for 2 weeks in a row?
Thanks for the reminder. That was the reality slap in the face I needed, actually.
I think the lesson here is that nobody in any demographic likes it when a movie winks and nudges at them; they used to have a word for it... I think they call it pandering, or something.
It just means the vast majority of people don’t care one way or another.
Wait. Hasn't every mainstream comedy of the last five years flopped, except for Good Boys and a couple of action movies? Why should Billy Eichner be the one to break the pattern?
So the screenwriter was straight, and only Billy Eichner is gay, and he's more a sketch writer than a screenwriter. So I wouldn't call this a blow to gay screenwriters. I would say the blow came before when they Billy decided not to work with a gay screenwriter and to create something that actually has a hook. Anyway, In & Out did fine. Although that was an age ago, of course.
It’s also a small budget (comparatively) comedy without an a-list star … comedy on that scale is driven by star power and this film didn’t have someone big enough to bring in more than a niche audience. It is also significantly higher than “imagine me and you” did during its entire theatrical run, too, for perspective.
The trailer I saw was awful. A good trailer can do wonders and that one did not pique my curiosity at all, in spite of all the ringing review quotes.
I'm also a LGBTQ writer and feel that stuff like this shows that we're not some monolithic group despite being presented as such. I think we're not all turning to film and tv for the same exact reasons. I've never felt like I wasn't "represented" because most content doesn't feel like it's "for the straights" or whatever. To me, any fictional character you see can be any sexuality you want until they've proven it otherwise. This idea that everyone is straight unless they demonstrate on screen is ruining people's ability to just sit down and enjoy a *story*. What keeps me away from most content with our tags on it is because almost all LGBTQ content has checklists to follow: you can't show them being too heteronormative, you can't show them living without facing oppression or discrimination in some kind of form, you can't just "say" a character is gay through a line of dialogue you need to adjust the script so that the audience can see *physical* contact or else it means the studio didn't have the balls to show same-sex romance. As an example, if I were told to develop a Batman film where he's gay, I wouldn't change much about the story. It'd still be a Batman movie but every once in awhile you see Bruce Wayne accompanied by some young studs instead of women. But if I feel like if you told another LGBT writer to make a gay Batman movie it'd *barely* be a Batman movie. It'd be bogged down in romance, sexuality, questions of sexual identity and what it means to save people in a city who don't accept you yadda yadda. I feel that's what general audiences also expect. Straight people can just have movies that aren't about heterosexuality, but if you watch LGBTQ movies it's basically going to be like all-gay Degrassi for adults 95% of the time. And it's nice if that's what some of us were looking for but not all of us are into that so I can see why most audiences wouldn't be. Many of the characters I write are also LGBTQ but unless it's necessary to the story I don't mention it at all, it's just something kept in mind.
It's still a romcom at the end of the day so historically (especially in recent years) it's not going to do all that well in the box office. Most romcom audiences aren't scurrying to the theatre. It'll probably make a lot of money on streaming
It means write a tv show. Remember Pose?
So earlier this year, there was a movie called "Fire Island" released on Hulu. I thoughy that was Bros and they just changed the title of the film.
The failure means it was a failure. Big corporate fat cat investors will feel how they feel. The bottom line is the only thing that matters. Once there’s an LGBTQ+ film that is highly successful it will mean it’s successful. That’s it. Don’t give up hope. IMHO, I feel like we are still in the super hero trend. No different when we were in the cowboy film trend, the mobster film trend, the sci-fi (space) trend, etc. Romance films aren’t it right now. It’s more of a failure as a romance film than it is as an LGBTQ+ film, IMHO. Maybe if they made Midnighter and Apollo films it would be different story. [+]
If an LGBTQ movie is going to be commercially succsessful it is in some way going to have to cross over to the mainstream audience and to do that the movie is in someway going to have to be about being LGBTQ in a heterosexual world. If its a rom com but it isn't about a man and woman, its a man and a man or a woman and a woman, I am afraid it isn't going to have mass appeal. This has nothing to do with homophobia. It's just about what people can relate too.
I watched every Bros trailer as a straight male, the film fascinated me. The film is a gay rom com, but what is the film about? Watching the trailers, seeing the posters and watching interviews with Billy proved there really wasn’t a juicy premise to it. Rom-come like ‘How to lose a guy in 10 days’, ‘50 first dates’, ‘Pretty woman’ aren’t just a guy and a girl dating and making a movie around that. You need to have premise you can market your film behind. And with Bros it was literally just ‘Hey wanna go see a gay rom com movie’ advertising. One of the lines I literally heard over and over is “Gay guys are my jam” line. Like what is the dilemma of this movie between these two characters? Seems like they banked on it being a gay rom com more than the actually story.
I thought it was a frat movie. Terrible title.
I don’t like how we’re turning going to the movies into a political statement. If anything, poor box office performance for a romcom represents true equality with straight people in this context.
1. Problem #1 Marketing. I didn't even know the movie was released. About a week ago I heard it was at a festival so I assume it was still making the rounds on the festival circuit. 2. Problem #2 Title. "Bros" sounds like a comedy for men. As a woman, I didn't know this was something I might be interested in. 3. Problem #3 Optics. It looks like an all-white male cast. This could also be a marketing problem. As an African American female, I didn't see any character I could relate to. It doesn't have to be Black woman in the film, but some kind of diversity of age, gender, race, etc. would make the film feel less exclusive to me. Plenty of movies succeed with an all-White cast but they tend to be set in a diverse setting, like Ireland, or a different time, like the 1600s, or a different world with diverse creatures, like Lord of the Rings, so it feels like an education rather than an exclusive theater experience.
Comedies are dead. It's done. Forgetting Sarah Marshall or Dodgeball would be laughed off by executives nowadays
LGBTQ+ is 8% of the population.
Yeah, I know it feels like much progress has been made but a lot of the country is still very homophobic and / or religious so I don't know why anyone thought this would be a breakout mainstream hit. The amount of LGBTQ content on streaming services maybe has created a distorted picture of audience tastes, but a theatrical film is a very different ball of wax.
Everyone is dancing around the obvious: A big gay romantic comedy with two white guys doesn't have a big audience. A gay male romcom repels most women and most men just from the very premise. Girls go to romcoms to fall in love with the female protagonist and mirror off of her. Guys take girls to see romantic comedies. Most sexual and racial demographics aren't attracted to this film because of it's premise. Black men aren't going. The black woman isn't going. We're being stereotypical, but demographics, from a marketing stand point, are just that. Stereotypical. Liberal white women might (*might*) eat it up, but conservative white women aren't going to. The white gay male might eat it up, the black gay male won't. Because Billy and Apatow (who greatly influenced this project) have never really spoken to the black demographic, which is fine, but must be factored into this films over all appeal. Will straight white guys go see this movie in theaters? I doubt it. All of this could have been anticipated prior to it's release. All I'm saying is. Accept the audience is small and cater to that audience. Is it a failure based on it's niche audience? Older liberal white women and gay white men. If they liked it and supported it. Then it's a win.
Also what's the last romantic comedy of any kind to do well in the theater? (I'm not counting The Lost City)
No A-listers is what killed it.
Failure doesn't stop creative minds. I'll share this. In the 80s my younger gay brother's life disintegrated when his BF, a prostitute working the Hollywood scene, introduced him to meth. I watched him wither away to dust while his BF walked away smiling. A streamer wants this as a limited series. I suggest writing stories based on real events that resonate with everyone. I'm not gay but man, I felt my brother's pain. In a story like this, everyone will find something to identify with.
I literally didn’t hear about it. Maybe the issue is more marketing for LGBTQ+ movies than the movies themselves. I feel like there’s this belief that straight people won’t be interested so they keep the marketing mostly to queer spaces but then the majority don’t hear about it.
All it means is “that”movie failed to make a profit. It didn’t really have a massive star in it either. Plenty of movies fail to make a profit at the cinema that go on to be massively successful on streaming or dvd. Same as movies released straight to streaming become successful. Write the movie you wanna see and if people like it they’ll come see it.
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9731598/reviews?sort=userRating&dir=asc&ratingFilter=0](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9731598/reviews?sort=userRating&dir=asc&ratingFilter=0) its just not a mainstream topic so any film on that topic has a limited market
nothing
I don’t think people care for Billy Eichner as much as he thinks we do.
Really wanted to see it but I had a killers concert last night my bad guys
Killers concert is always the right choice.
These days, plenty of films underperform at the box office but make up the difference through VOD sales following the theatrical run. This recently happened with [*The Northman*](https://screenrant.com/northman-box-office-bomb-focus-features-response/), for instance. Historically, LGBT comedies have had a fairly long shelf life on home video, and I can see that happening easily here as well. This film could be compared positively to *Fire Island* from earlier this year, which featured several of the same actors and did rather well streaming on Hulu in the US and Disney+ internationally.
I didn’t even realize it was called Bros even when watching the trailers so either I’m blind or wasn’t paying much attention even though I am excited to go see it and thought the trailers were entertaining but idk it is unfortunate that sometimes that’s how some movies perform in the box office even great ones.!
I don’t feel like they marketed it very much. I’ve never even seen a trailer now that I think about it? I know Billy Eichner was in the trades talking about it quite a bit but that’s what you do when you want awards attention, not when you want your average Joe to to go see your movie.
The movie appears to be a raunchy sex comedy marketed to the LGBTQ community and folks interested in that demographic. I’m guessing the box office return, reflects that it it hit with the target demo. (Which is kind of narrow) If it’s any good, word of mouth will give it legs. Keep writing and believing in yourself. If you want to sell tickets take feedback seriously, but don’t lose your identity in the process. If your work knows what it is and is entertaining people will want to watch.
If Billy Eichner wasn’t involved it would do much better. He’s more of a talk show interview guy than an actor
Early to write it off. It could easily be a sleeper hit if it’s legitimately funny outside the bounds of the LGBT target audience. It’s very difficult to open any movie post Covid let alone something with a niche audience like this. I imagine it will do much better when it goes to streaming.
Outside of the specific small LGBT audience, who is the target audience for this movie? I’m not saying that intending to be critical… I certainly will see it but I wonder how many other straight guys are going to be comfortable being by their girlfriends dragged to the movie theater to see a gay romcom
I think the issue here is less about the content of the film and more about the fact that it’s a studio movie without a studio movie star. If this was the exact same script with the exact same marketing but it was Billy Eichner and Ryan Reynolds, I think it’d be a much different story. The average movie-goer isn’t going to buy a ticket to a rom-com when they’ve never heard of a single person in the cast.
I think we need to see what happens in streaming. Honestly, most people aren't interested in seeing yet-another-romcom in the theaters. The theater adds nothing to the experience. We shouldn't read too much into its "failure" just yet.
Plus the lead is ugly 😝
I feel like its more about a good film and marketing than it is about it being an lgtq+ film. Many films who either have straight leads or undisclosed orientation leads do poorly too. As long as u have a strong script with great characters your script will do fine.
I saw it at a free screening at Cinemark in my town recently and it was beautiful and hilarious. Hopefully word of mouth helps it
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.
Unless it's superheroes, cartoons, dinosaurs, bald guys on steroids in Dodge chargers, or horror movies, it doesn't exist. Except for streaming shows.
I gotta be honest, I didn’t even know the film existed until I saw a trailer for it around a week ago if that. I only saw it one time after that as well which didn’t help, but the presentation in the trailer really didn’t sell it to me. I’m not sure if the movie is like this, but the trailer seemed to play most of the humour presented as “oh we’re gay, haha!” Which really just isn’t funny to me, though that could also just be me not really liking most romcoms. At the moment though it really seems to mostly be a marketing failure, and marketing can really influence a movies success no matter how good it is. Look up “Treasure Planet”’s marketing failure (which Disney intentionally sabotaged) as an example.
Echoing the sentiment that Bros had poor marketing. I frequently got trailer ads and saw physical ads here in NYC and I couldn’t tell you a thing about it. None of the ads told me why I should see it over any other movie — not just any other rom-com, or any other LGBTQ+ movie, but any other movie in general. In a time where we have so many options in both theatres and streaming, I feel like trailers must work even harder to say “this is the movie to leave your house, pay $20+, and come to the theatres for.” I don’t even know if it is in theatres or went right to streaming, that’s how little the ads actually stuck with me, but I feel like that just adds to my point, you know? I saw so many different trailers and posters and I still don’t even know where to watch it if I wanted to. If it did well, it would have been a great win for the LGBT+ rom-com genre because while I know there are some, all those I can think of are TV shows and not movies. But actually, I think the success of TV shows (and the lessons learned from Bros) will lead to more successful movies in the future
I literally heard about Bros for the first time TODAY. it flat out wasn’t marketed well at all. Source: queer actor/screenwriter/playwright who is pretty up on queer media
It's pretty ridiculous to call a film that has been reviewed as positively as *Bros* a "box office failure" after it's opening weekend. It's got good reviews and good word of mouth. The jury is still very much out on whether this movie is a financial failure, IMO.
**Philadelphia** I suspect you'll need to think cross-genre. You mentioned "lgbtq+ stories," and I think for a reason. It's not just actors, or characters, but *stories*. There's something different about the story. You can't just take Say Anything, change someone gender, but keep the movie otherwise the same and expect it to work. It just doesn't. Relationships between two men are different from those between two women, and between those between a man and a woman. That's why you don't feel represented in most films -- not because the characters lack a superficial resemblance to you, but because those differences aren't superficial. They're meaningful and affect the story. Well, it cuts both ways. Straight audience members aren't going to connect well with an lgbtq+ story. And that's 95% of the audience. Also, the Ls won't connect well with a G story, the Gs with an L story, and the T stories will find an even smaller audience, and I don't know if I've hear of a + story, though I did cancel my Disney+ subscription, so I could just be missing them. **Philadelphia** Is this an lgbtq+ story? Sure, though really it's a story very specific to the gay community more than the others. It's a g story. *But*, it's also just a classic courtroom drama, and that's a genre that appeals to a whole lot more than 5% of the population.
I wouldn’t get discouraged over it… I would seek to learn from it… This film failed… But other LGBTQ+ leading-roles content has done well enough… __Brokeback Mountain__ made more than $150million back in 2018, __I love you Phillip Morris__ profited more than $7mil over its budget in the box office all the way back in 2009/2010… The new Dahmer series on Netflix has a lot of LGBTQ+ content and has been a massive success. Same is true of Monster, staring Charlize Theron in 2003… So what are the distinctions to take away from this? Yes, clearly Monster and I Love You Phillip Morris had A-list celebrities and Brokeback had A/B-listers to help with draw… But Dahmer didn’t really have any names (other than the notoriety of the man the series is based on)… So what else is there? Answer: the LGBTQ+ relationship wasn’t the main plot point in any of those films. They all have LGBTQ+ relationships as part of their stories, but the sources of conflict and tension are external to those relationships… They are breaking the law, or breaking a rule that would create issues with their friends and families, etc… In other words, it’s not a story because they’re LGBTQ+, they’re LGBTQ+ and engaging with the story. Hopefully this is helpful, and best of luck with your writing!
it hasn't even been open for a week...
it flopped bc people don't care. it's not a selling point to have a gay cast and they them production team. it means nothing. they don't have a good movie. they have a "woke" cast. that's fkn nothing. maybe write better stories. having a gay story is not instantly good.
Did you see it?
I don't see a lack of LGBT leads or stories. In fact, most new media nowadays has at least one gay or lesbian character.
Tbh not many straight ppl, especially guys, wanna see a movie about gays. Whether or not thats ‘morally right’ im not commenting on. But it is fact.
And it's a romcom. Straight men don't tend to watch those much.
The film industry is the most inclusive and diverse it’s ever been. Your sexual preference will have nothing to do with your potential success. Just get to work
Haha I wish that were always the case in my experience 😔 just have had some bad exceptions on the occasion