The string of successes as Warner Bros. comes to a crashing end with The Bride!
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! is off to a brutal start at the box office, opening to just $7.26 million domestic and only $13.56 million worldwide.
For a movie carrying a reported $80 million to $90 million budget, that’s a disaster right out of the gate, and it already looks like a major flop for Warner Bros.
The box office is a disaster
The Bride! was supposed to be a bold new take on Bride of Frankenstein, but audiences didn’t show up.
Reports peg the production budget at $90 million, and that doesn’t include marketing.
Variety reported Warner Bros. also spent a reported $65 million on promotion, which makes the opening even worse.
A traditional break-even point for a movie like this would likely be well north of $200 million worldwide, so The Bride! is already facing an uphill climb that looks nearly impossible.
Reviews are mixed and the audience score isn’t saving it
The reviews aren’t helping much.
The Bride! currently sits at 59% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes and 73% with verified audience ratings. That tells you everything you need to know. Some viewers and critics are into the movie’s weird, chaotic style, but plenty of others clearly are not.
Rotten Tomatoes’ consensus says the film goes in so many different creative directions that the result comes off both sloppy and inspired, which lines up with a lot of the reactions online. Some are calling it bold and original. Others think it’s a total mess.
IMDb users also have it sitting at a weak 6.0 out of 10, which is another sign that word of mouth isn’t exactly strong.
That C+ CinemaScore is a red flag
If there’s one number that really jumps out, it’s the CinemaScore.
The Bride! landed a C+, which is bad news for any big studio release trying to build momentum after opening weekend. CinemaScore polls opening-night audiences, so when the grade comes in that low, it usually means general moviegoers weren’t impressed.
That low grade also helps explain why the movie is already getting labeled a box office bomb. Even movies with mixed critic scores can survive if audiences like them. That doesn’t seem to be the case here.
What is The Bride! about?
The Bride! is Maggie Gyllenhaal’s feminist reimagining of the Bride of Frankenstein story. Set in 1930s Chicago, the movie stars Jessie Buckley as the Bride and Christian Bale as Frankenstein’s monster, with the story mixing horror, romance, crime, music, and social commentary.
A big miss for Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. has had a decent run lately, which makes The Bride! stand out even more as a miss. Instead of breaking out, it got crushed on opening weekend and is already being talked about as one of the year.
