UPDATE: The billionaires can relax. The movie flopped, and The Uprising is already on digital, only 18 days after opening.
Andrew Garfield says he hopes billionaires walk out of The Uprising terrified. The internet has spent the weekend reminding him what he gets paid.
Garfield and director Paul Greengrass took fan questions Thursday night at AMC The Grove 14 in Los Angeles, at a screening event beamed into AMC theaters across the country. The video comes courtesy of TheMovieReport.com, which shot the Q&A live on location.
Asked what he hopes audiences take home from the movie, Garfield answered: “Well, first I hope they come and see it, first thing. But secondly, I hope it’s galvanizing. I hope there’s some awakening that people feel, that we all feel like our own struggles are being reflected in the struggles of these characters from a distant time and place, and that it could be directive.”
“And I hope that if any billionaires watch it, they’re scared sh-tless,” he added.
It wasn’t the only line like it.
Earlier in the panel, Garfield spoke about “the injustice that we are witnessing in this country” and said, “I know I for one wake up every morning going, has anyone been held accountable yet? Nope. No one’s been held accountable yet.”
Garfield continued, “And it builds. The rage just builds and the anxiety builds.”
Later, when the host quoted the film’s line, “There will be no peace until we are healed,” Garfield came back to the subject.
“I’m going to include the billionaires in that as well, cuz they’re the ones that might be the most soul sick,” he said. “They’re the ones that might need the healing the most in a way.”
Garfield stars in The Uprising as a widowed farmer who rises to lead the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt against King Richard II’s tax collectors.
‘The Billionaires Who Greenlight Your Movies’
The clip spread across X after the screening, and Fox News Digital picked it up, with critics pointing at the star’s own wealth.
Spencer Pratt, who ran for mayor of Los Angeles, asked whether Garfield meant “the billionaires who greenlight your movies and stroke all your multi-million dollar paychecks.”
Rick Davis, an associate pastor at a Virginia church, wrote that he was excited when he first heard someone was making a movie about Wat Tyler, but the more Garfield talks, “it sounds like it’s just going to be socialist garbage.”
Garfield, 43, is a multi-millionaire himself.
The actor reportedly earned $1 million to return as Peter Parker in Spider-Man: No Way Home, which grossed $1.92 billion worldwide.
That came on top of a reported $500,000 for The Amazing Spider-Man and $1 million for its sequel. His net worth sits at an estimated $16 million.
Garfield’s Next Role Is A Billionaire
Pratt also pointed to where Garfield’s next paycheck is coming from, claiming the actor was paid around $5 million to play billionaire OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial.
That film premieres October 5 at the New York Film Festival.
Artificial has a billionaire story of its own behind the scenes. Amazon MGM developed and financed the movie, then dropped the finished film in June, just months after Amazon signed a $50 billion investment deal with Altman’s OpenAI.
Neon picked it up.
The billionaires flap is also the second time The Uprising‘s rollout has caught fire online in two weeks, after Focus Features rebranded the movie “The Rise of Robin Hood” days before release and spent a week getting corrected about who Robin Hood actually stole from.
The Uprising opens in theaters Friday, September 11. Greengrass wrote and directed, Jason Blum produces through Blumhouse, and the cast includes Cosmo Jarvis as rebel leader Wat Tyler, Woody Norman as King Richard II, Jamie Bell, Thomasin McKenzie, Katherine Waterston, and Tom Hollander.
Four weeks after that, Garfield hits the New York Film Festival playing a billionaire.
