Inherent vice bombed

The other day I tried searching "inherent vice bomb"...i was shocked that apart from an unknown website no major websites mentioned that the movie was bomb...it made 15 million $. That's a bomb. For some reason it feels as if the box office trading pundits and hollywood based journalists are trying to erase the fact that the movie has bombed. Is it because no one cares enough to write about it or its intentional ?

Movie came out 4 years ago. Why is this of interest?

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Probably because:

a) nobody expected it to be a hit, it's a weird movie.
b) it didn't cost that much, so it's not much of a bomb.

TWBB or The Master weren't successes either, no one really expects PTA's movies to be. Not really the point in him making them.

Can anyone explain why directors with these track records get there films green lit. If the studio almost knows for sure that the movie will bob why would they make it. It is just for the low risk-potential high reward factor or is just to get some type of awards associated with the studio?

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I think it's in part because the economics of movies rely less on initial box office. People say a lot of movies "bomb" but if they're critically acclaimed, or if the director has a dedicated fan base, I assume they still make money when you factor in home theater sales, rentals, licensing to streaming services, etc. If you end up with a classic (or even just a very well-reviewed film that's still talked about years later), it can pay a modest amount of money, but for a very long time, I would think.

So, it's less that nobody minds paying for bombs, it's more than people use "bomb" to describe a pretty narrow and outdated set of criteria.

Agreed with Yoda.

Some studios also still like to do an interesting prestige project with a high profile director once in a while. It's relatively cheap (or makes a modest amount of money in the long run, as Yoda already stated) and has a good chance of getting them awards.

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You make some good points. "Vice" was followed up a few years later with You Were Never Really Here (2017), which had a similar feel to it, with Phoenix again playing a near incoherent stoner (his best type of character). It also had a low box office. IMO the best things about both movies are Johnny Greenwood's superb music scores.

In Phoenix's case, I don't know if he's ever been in a money making movie. He's one of those actors who is an official artistic property, whose performances are presumed to be deep and meaningful. Presumably he's been offered more popular type roles, but he likely rejects them.

But as to Aronisred's initial question, it may be that the producers are hoping for a sleeper hit in some of these films that have ended up losing money, at least at the box office. After all, James Dean, Montgomery Clift and others were considered artistic actors when freshmen, and they quickly rose to bankable stars (not likely with Phoenix).

But Yoda may be right about the sum total of a film's earnings from all sources, including foreign. It would be interesting to find a site that lists total earnings, not just U.S. box office.

~Doc

www.boxofficemojo.com has that, and a lot of other good stuff.

Thanks for the tip, Yoda. I did check, and it seems to show "Lifetime gross/Theaters" rather than total revenue from all sources.

For example, out of curiosity I searched for Inherent Vice, which only showed that it earned $8.1M-- lifetime gross/theaters.

That statistic may be shown somewhere else; although that info may not be available, may not be published.

~Doc

Ah, I misunderstood. Yeah, I don't think we have anything close to comprehensive including all sources. Even if it were all public that'd be a lot to compile, I suppose.

I know i am a little late to the party but PTA is widely regarded as a genius. No one can think like him. I read somewhere that studio's screen their would be awards contenders to him and would take his input into consideration before deciding how it would be received or whether or not the movie deserves an aggressive awards campaign. So in a way he is doing them a solid. So they always pay attention to his movies and give it a watch before voting for oscars. If a director is in that kind of position as long as he doesn't need 100 million $ and can keep the budgets towards the lower end of mid budget then major studios are willing to take a gamble. I think alexander payne might have lost that privilege after downsizing.

Films like There WIll Be Blood and Boogie Nights were also quite successful just at the box office considering their budgets making around 3 times more. Add in home releases and the prestige his films bring to a studio and I think you have the answer why he gets significant(not massive but big for arthouse films) budgets to work with.

I'm guessing the problem Inherent Vice had is that it was a bit of a mismatch between the directors rep(by that point anyway) and its most likely audience, fans of the Big Lebowski.

Don't get the PTA love. I've never really enjoyed his movies. But Internet Vice was boring and forgetable. Kind of sealed my fate in not being interested in much of what he does. Just not my cup of tea. Lots of other people's tea though.

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