UPDATE: There was no formula that worked. The Uprising made $7.7 million worldwide and is on digital as of September 29.
Andrew Garfield hasn’t seen the fight his billionaires comment started. He quit social media three weeks ago.
The actor told fans at last Thursday’s AMC screening event that he hopes any billionaires who watch The Uprising are “scared sh-tless,” and social media and X spent the weekend answering with his own paychecks.
The story kept going on Reddit. When it hit the Cosmic Book News subreddit, the thread climbed to 1,072 upvotes and 468 comments, most of them fighting over one question: does a multi-millionaire get to say that?
‘About A Billion Dollars’
Plenty of readers weren’t buying it.
“Stick to acting. Love when the multi millionaires complain about billionaires,” one wrote.
“He’s talking like he knows what it’s like to struggle to afford rent and pay bills, like he’s one of us,” said another. “Virtue signaling and blatant promotion from a dude worth $16 million at 43 years old.”
“I’m sure the billionaires who invested in it are scared sh-tless,” a third added.
The other side of the thread argued the math.
“Do you know what the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire is? About a billion dollars,” one reader wrote. “I’ll personally take any ally we can get against the billionaires.”
“He is actually closer to us regular people in terms of wealth than he is to billionaires,” said another, while a third pointed out, “He is also an actor, therefore a worker. Yes he is better paid than most but he works for super rich Hollywood executives at the end of the day.”
Others just went for the joke. “Nobody saw The Uprising. How can anyone be scared of it?” one asked, with the reply: “This joke is like a week too early.”
‘Three Weeks Sober From Social Media’
Garfield, in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter published Tuesday, says the whole week of noise around the movie passed him by, including the Robin Hood marketing confusion.
“This all went over my head a little bit. I’m three weeks sober from social media,” Garfield said. “I really trust Focus. I trust Paul [Greengrass]. I trust this film to find the people that it’s meant to find.”
He’s been unplugged enough that he still hasn’t seen Spider-Man: Brand New Day or The Odyssey. “I’m the only person alive who hasn’t seen these movies,” he said.
The pitch for his own movie hasn’t stopped, though.
“We’re in a time of chaos. There’s no formula to getting people to see a film,” Garfield said. “However that happens — whether it’s me eating chicken wings with hot sauce, or people talking about Robin Hood or a deranged horse — I just really believe in [The Uprising].”
“So bring on the deranged horse,” he added.
The horse is a callback to We Live in Time, when a first-look photo of Garfield and Florence Pugh on a carousel went viral over the crazed-looking carousel horse sharing the frame with them.
‘That’s Going To Solve Nothing’
Off the grid or not, Garfield isn’t softening the message that started all this.
THR writes that the actor sees the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt mirroring today’s America, where people on both sides of the aisle are fed up with billionaires pouring record money into elections while the cost of living climbs for everyone else.
“There’s a universal rage we’re all feeling,” Garfield said. “There’s a kind of imprisonment that we’re all suffering under, and it’s keeping us from our sense of belonging to this earth, to ourselves, to each other and to the dignity of our own souls.”
Garfield continued, “There’s an obsession that we have right now with ascending above all of our issues and even going to another f—ing planet to do it. That’s going to solve nothing.”
The Uprising opens in theaters Friday, September 11.
As for the movies Garfield missed while he was logged off, he plans to catch up in a theater: “The movies are back, baby.”
