It was still too early for the #MeToo movie – that’s why She Said failed

You know it’s bad news that the film flopped at the box office when Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood monster currently in jail for rape and facing seven other counts of sexual assault, releases a statement to celebrate the failure.

That’s exactly what happened she saidDirected by Maria Schroeder, #MeToo is a new journalistic film about two female reporters (played by Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan) who uncovered the extent of the 2017 Harvey Weinstein scandal. The film, which cost $30 million to make, grossed a measly $2.2 million in its opening weekend in the US, making it one of the worst box office flops of all time.

It’s always frustrating when a really good film fails at the box office; This usually means that studio executives are unlikely to take another financial risk related to something of the same nature, no matter what it is (or its quality). But it’s especially unfortunate given the issue, and especially given the Weinstein camp’s statement on the matter:

“Cinema audiences want to be entertained right now. The details of the investigation, the #MeToo movement, the Weinstein story, and the prosecution have been repeated over and over over the past five years, and it is clear that there was little worth looking at here,” the statement said. “Harvey, a film producer and distributor, would have known about this,” he adds, not referring to his lawsuit, but only to his Hollywood merit.

Given that weariness and even backlash against the #MeToo movement has been a source of debate for some time, it’s no surprise that Weinstein and company are trying to ignite the movement like a flash in a frying pan. The assumption that the public is just “living through it” is a useful behind-the-scenes tool to suggest that these things will settle down and the status quo will return, especially since society as a whole is “tired” of it and “just wanted to be”. “. talk.” This is a grotesque statement, to say the least.

And while in general I would never say that a recent film about an ongoing political and social movement was “too early”, in this case there may be something in the discursive cycle that confirms this. Years after the first inspirational #MeToo spate shattered the heartbreaking everyday reality of sexual assault, it has become a center of triumph, backlash, uncertainty, and complex moral gray areas of truth, legality, and accusation.

Viewers might feel like they know enough about the Weinstein case and its aftermath, however fresh in memory, to skip the movie altogether. movie like she said position yourself in a wiser place.

A very good film about a good cause. Some studio forecasters have taken advantage of their failure to make a dangerous assumption: Hollywood scenes “led by women” or “feminists” are beginning to fall out of fashion or fail with the public (absurd way of thinking: as if just over half the world’s population never deserved to be in the movies and that men should get back to work).

Box office receipts are a key indicator of audience preferences, release dates and distribution decisions, and sometimes, of course, cultural tides. But this is not the most important thing in cinema as an art form or as a tool for spreading activist beliefs: Hollywood guys should remember this before counting their money again.