Last night, as numbers for Sinners came in, we learned it was opening to a $61 million weekend worldwide. That usually is cause for celebration, but on Variety's X channel, they put out this tweet.
Immediately, people like Franklin Leonard, Ben Stiller, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Kristen Schaal, and many other Hollywood personalities fired back at the tweet, calling out the negative framing and pursuit of clicks.
Look, this is where I'll stop to acknowledge I work for a publication also in search of clicks. Your clicks keep us alive here, we need them.
But I would hope you would roast us if we put out a headline social story like this one.
So here are the facts inside the Variety article we can look at in the light of day...
Sinners got $15.6 million overseas after opening in 71 markets. In North America, the movie made around $48 million. That means that Sinners made a total of $63.5 million in its global debut.
The movie's budget was around $90 million, and we can assume P&A probably put it closer to $150 million all in.
So, in its opening weekend, it got to around 40% of its money back, andi its strong word of mouth and debut above projections should be an exciting piece of information to those inside Warner Bros. especially because you could see a trend in VOD with larger movies like this doing very well when they hit that platform.
Now, let's go back to the clickbait controversy. I think a lot of us creatives inside Hollywood are really tired of the doom and gloom. When we see social media stuff trying to collect clicks using cynical "make them mad" tactics, we get mad.
This is our livelihood at stake.
No one is asking for anyone to falsely advertise something, but when an original R-rated movie opens to $60+ million, that deserves some praise. You can pick apart the $90 million budget if you want, but maybe you should wait until you see how a movie like this legs out before you take a shovel and bury it.
What we want is for these publications and their social teams who frame these tweets to thoughtfully put things out into the world.
Be fair.
But hey, I bet they got a lot of clicks. And maybe that was the point all along, so bully for them.
Let us know what you think in the comments.
That quote may seem trite, but the more directors you talk to, the more you hear this sentiment echoed. Doug Liman recently said something to the extent of, "most directing is saying, 'faster.'" And while I had a chance to ask director David Cronenberg a few questions a decade ago at the Telluride Film Festival, that was so long ago that I don't remember any specific quotes. However, here are AFI and DP/30 with interviews with Cronenberg, whose latest is A Dangerous Method:
