Eastwood's Trouble with the Curve placed 3rd at the Box Office this week, behind two movies nobody's ever heard of. It's also garnering some very unimpressive reviews. Even with a 32% Red State bailout (Red Staters flocked to the movie on Saturday), Clint's movie couldn't pull into the top spot over relatively weak competition (reminds me of the GOP primary).
End of Watch with Jake Gyllenhaal cost only $7M to produce while House at the End of the Street cost only around $10M. They held the #1 and #2 earnings slot. I wasn't able to pin down how much Eastwood's movie cost to make at this time, but I'm almost certain it was more than either.
One wonders what Hollywood studios think about the public's initial reaction to Eastwood's film after the RNC debacle, and if the words "Mel Gibson" are crossing anyone's lips.
Clint Eastwood's war against furniture continues in the baseball-themed "Trouble With the Curve," in which he kicks an innocent table to death because it got in his way.
In fact, it's a little hard to see the baseball through the character's rage at the way the indignities of old age are robbing him of purpose.
Personally, Clint Eastwood used to be the kind of guy I'd go see in a movie. Same with Mel Gibson. But once I learned more about who they really are, all of a sudden their films just didn't interest me as much. Some of them are still good films, technically, but once the person in them has so much unappealing baggage tied to them, it's difficult to impossible to divorce that from the characters they play.
If Eastwood's latest movie continues to flop, I'm sure he and his team will try extra hard to right the ship next time and focus on creating a new masterpiece. If anything, Clint Eastwood seems to be obsessed with his own legacy. It's going to be tough for him now though. I can't count the number of people I talked to that said they were just "disappointed" in the guy Eastwood turned out to be. Movie stars spend absurd amounts of money and time tailoring their image so that people want to see them on screen, sometimes despite the character they're playing. But once that goes wrong, it's very difficult to come back from it. Ultimately, movie studios know that if the public wants to see the star in the movie, that's almost all of it.
And that's why they waited to release House at the End of the Street until after Hunger Games came out - they knew Jeniffer Lawrence was the reason people would come see it, and it turned out they were right - more people even than Clint Eastwood, a guy with a huge career and what should be a huge advantage when it comes to drawing in the crowds.
All that now seems to have gone down the drain. And given what Eastwood did, he probably deserves for this potential decline in his career towards the end to be a big part of the way he's remembered. Just like Mel Gibson.