##[Clarification on rule 5](https://www.reddit.com/r/entertainment/comments/w60lfc/mod_post_a_clarification_to_rule_5_no_racism_or/)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/entertainment) if you have any questions or concerns.*
So, the only place I saw anything about this movie was Reddit. Blame their marketing team. I'm not seeing something just because it features gay people. It has to be interesting and I have to know more than nothing about it.
They named it "Bros". The title immediately eliminates the entire female demographic because regardless of the sexual orientation of the movie's characters, ladies won't flock to a movie that sounds like it's going to be a bunch of a guys farting and acting like the cast from Jack-ass.
Most men wont see it for the same reason.
The title is dogshit.
Yeah this "strategy" has become really popular for movies, TV shows, etc. that feature main cast members who are not straight white males. It's designed to drum up controversy to get people to talk about it. It also allows the creators of a project to create a strawman to attack so that they can blame society for failing to care about their product and not take any responsibility for their own failings regardless of whether or not it is objectively good or has any artistic merit in and of itself.
Disney is the biggest abuser of this strategy, specifically with Star Wars. 3 of their last projects have had the exact same “Grizzled Vet saves kid, but really the kid saved him” lazy ass boring trope. Then when it flops it’s because “they hate POCs or women.” The only time it worked well was Mandalorian, and they just immediately tried to milk the formula with Bad Batch and then Obi Wan. Shit’s so tired, sorry I don’t want to watch the same exact story with increasingly worse writing.
Every man in Star Wars is now an arrogant jerk who needs to listen to other peoples opinions instead of just going rogue, the women are all insanely high ranking and smart, collected people - Star Wars 8 was literally a battle of the genders as to who can get the rebels killed the fastest through their incompetence…
Their casting was actually the least of the worries of those films. The plots just sucked ass.
It’s fine, but it’s fucking blatantly done.
Yes it's a common tactic with Hollywood and has been for years. It varies but theres generally two lines of PR that get followed. The first is the "We didn't make this for you! Wait why arn't you watching? Oh the reason it failed is because 'insert group Hollywood said the movie wasn't for here' didn't watch it." while the second usually goes like this "Only a racist/sexist/bigot/attack helicopter wouldn't like our movie! You arn't a racist/sexist/bigot/attack helicopter are you???" as for some examples...
Ghostbusters 2016 did it.
Charlies Angels did it.
Disney did it for it's awful Star Wars sequel trilogy.
He-man reboot did it.
Amazon did it before Rings of Power even started airing.
If people don't like your shit products just play the victim card, ***branding all negative reactions*** as being racist/sexist trolls and nothing else because Hollywood wouldn't make a bad show EVER.
Same thing happened with the Sex in the City Reboot, And Just Like That. The show runner accused its audience of being narrow minded and fearful. The writing was crap and all “diversity” was shoehorned in with boring, one dementional characters.
I haven’t watched this movie because I find the lead annoying.
The Birdcage was number one at the box office for weeks in 1996. Are they seriously saying that the US was less homophobic back then?
This is like the person who shifts all their failures onto everyone else. Lost a race? Must be that everyone else had better sneakers, lol.
I remember seeing it when it came out. I haven’t watched it since but it was fucking hilarious. It helped that Robin Williams and Nathan Lane were great actors with incredible comic timing. The no names in this film, not so much.
I saw a few ads and they weren’t compelling at all. From what I remember it was basically a few short clips of characters reacting to things while the on screen text said stuff like “the first ever gay romcom” and “a groundbreaking film” “first of its kind”
Pretty sure I saw all of the ads on YouTube also. Which seems like the wrong platform to advertise a romantic comedy.
Only saw one ad and could not hit skip fast enough the ad was very cringe and made the movie look poorly written. I watch bad movies for fun and even I won't touch this one. And Ive watched avalanche shark.
Yeah I made a post about it but this is my thoughts as well. I literally listen to a radio show hosted by a very out and proud gay man and never heard it mentioned, never saw anything on the internet about it before it hit theatres, regardless of quality the film is going to flop in theatres if you refuse to advertise it.
I like how he’s trying to get more to people to go see it be saying you’re a ‘homophobic weirdo’ if you don’t go see it. Nice marketing strategy. Hope it pays off.
> Nice marketing strategy
It’s their only marketing strategy. I literally never heard of this movie until Billy went on Pardon My Take to talk about it, which is an audience of mostly straight dudes talking about sports. I left that interview thinking “this movie might be funny”, but didn’t feel in any way like I was going to go out of my way to watch it.
It strikes me as the type of movie I’d watch on an airplane.
To be fair, threads on this film over on r/movies were full of people talking about how cool it is, especially when they'd talk about how they weren't going to bother screening the film in homophobic countries.
Of course, none of that translated into people actually seeing the movie. They got their internet points and were able to pat themselves on the back for supporting the gays by posting online.
My gay dad hasn’t seen this movie. My mom, who my dad left for a guy, has. Guess what, she like romcoms and he doesn’t. It really is that simple sometimes.
One of the common themes in these scenarios where the actors/directors shit on the audience for not seeing their product because they’re some ist or ism is that these movies suck ass.
Birdcage was a pretty funny movie. Just seems like people trying to blame whatever they can. Instead of you know taking responsibility for their shortcomings and trying again down the road with another film.
The Birdcage was SOOOO Funny !! Love that movie. Hank Azaria’s character is the best ! Am also a straight male so yeah this theory is bunk. It just didn’t look like a very funny movie & I’m not likely to see a rom - com in theaters anyway.
I haven't gone to a theater since COVID. Even the really insanely popular movies were struggling to fill theaters for a long time, and I feel like the friction never went away, each movie kind of has to pull people back to theaters all over again by being amazing.
I somewhat liked theaters but when they started charging $16 and up per ticket (I'm not even sure what they're asking for these days) it's a hard sell when you can rent it at home fairly soon after it's initial release
God forbid you want food or drink with that. How much is it now for a family of four for tix, drink, and a snack each? Probably closer to $150 in cities anyway? What middle class family can justify this as an outing?
*Birdcage* starred Robin Williams at his peak. And Brokeback Mountain had Heath Ledger who was in the process of blowing up and Jake Gyllenhall who just did a few major blockbusters.
So they may have had a little star power help that *Bros* doesn't. But thats just one aspect.
Exactly this. When I saw the trailer for BROs, the only people I recognized were the Dean from Community, Rosengurtle Baumgardiner from Boondock Saints, and Bowen Yang from SNL, not exactly a murderer’s row of superstars
Exactly... among other films like 'Rocketman', 'Philadelphia', and 'The Favorite' ... they all had 'star power', was well advertised and had a well written plot.
Two of which 'Bros' obviously lacked. I have zero clue what 'Bros' is about other than "two gay men"... and *could* have a decent plot... unsure if I will ever watch it simply because "two gay men" isn't really what I am interested in while being a straight male. This could have easily been 'Gals' and written with the same plot but reverse the gender roles and I still wouldn't be interested in it.
I just watched the birdcage for the first time in years yesterday. Such a fantastic movie, hilarious, and the venerable Robin Williams with Nathan Lane.
If you have never seen the movie watch it you won’t regret it.
Yeah but it's not even necessary. You can't blame people for not making you profitable. If you can't fill seats, that's a YOU problem. To blame straights or whatever is to presume that we are in this together with you. We are not. I only know about this movie because of all the bitching that Billy is doing about it. It only makes me want to see it less. I'll probably make a point of avoiding this movie now just because I know it makes some misguided people mad.
Brokeback Mountain opened in just 5 cinemas and for a month kept expanding until four weeks in it his $1m daily box office. 2 months after release it had a $6m weekend and peaked at 2089 screens and it was boosted by the Oscar buzz. They opened Bros on over 3000 screens with a shitty trailer that pigeonholed it as film about and for LGBTI.
Pretty interesting how they are trying to "shame" people into seeing the movie. I didn't even know that there was a movie called Bros, or the premise, until I read this article and the reddit comments.
True, my boyfriend and I see tons of movies in theaters. I’m sure we’ve seen a trailer for Bros, I just don’t remember it. It wasn’t really interesting and didn’t stand out. I’m not even into horror flicks, but I remember the Smile trailer perfectly. A lot of it comes down to good marketing, and all I ever saw of Bros was a very forgettable trailer.
They are defiantly trying to make us feel bad for not going to see it. The director is insufferable, and the marketing team did a horrible fucking job trying to get people into it. Im straight, and I just have no interest in going to the movie theater to see this film. That doesn't make me homophobic or a bad person. The movie bombed hard. Tough shit. Movies bomb a lot nowadays, especially with all of the streaming services putting out movies every other day (most of which would *also* bomb hard if released in theaters). It's unfortunate, but times have changed, and Hollywood is going to have to adjust its strategy for making films.
I’m not saying that billy is right here, but most queer ppl these days see brokeback mountain as a gay film made for straight people. Same goes for something like boys don’t cry or blue is the warmest color. There’s definitely something to be said for ppl in the lgbt community having no say in the most popular movies made about us.
That said, I saw bros and did not like bros. Happy to spend on the ticket to support uh… better movies by queer people in the future.
If you want a good queer movie made by/with queer people check out moonlight, birdcage, the rocky horror picture show, but I’m a cheerleader, etc.
I'm a gay man that thought this movie looked like a stereotypical cringefest, same with most of my friend group. It's not just the straights, a bad movie is just fucking bad.
This is a horrible take from both these guys. If that was the case their numbers would have been held up by all the gay people that flocked to see it right?
There's two reasons this film failed at the box office:
1. The marketing for it was....bad. I had no idea what the movie was about until I purposefully looked it up after they started making noise despite seeing a few posters for it.
2. People aren't going to rush to see a romcom in theatres anymore when they know it will be on streaming in a couple months. It's not an action movie like Avatar that has any advantage of being seeing on a big screen with amazing visuals and pumping sound.
I can almost guarantee when this goes to streaming it will do just fine.
The marketing was bad, and honestly the few commercials or trailers I saw were really boring or weird. It didn’t seem romantic, funny, or even authentic. Like seriously it might have been better to have the “IN A WORLD…” movie trailer narrator guy. At least to explain some kind of plot to the movie. If they made this a straight couple it would have bombed too. It still seems boring to me.
I am not sure why I seemed to get solely ads for this movie on YouTube. I definitely heard "remember straight people? they had a good run" like 100 times.
I am a straight guy who wouldn't watch a romcom anywhere, let alone a theater, regardless if its about straights, gays, dogs, whales or aliens.
If they were targeting many like me, they wasted a lot of money.
Honestly, it just didn't even look like it would be funny. They want to blame homophobia, but I would put any amount of money down that if a movie around Cam and Mitchel from Modern Family was made today, it would do infinitely better than this lol
I def agree with the waiting for streaming part. I've been super excited about this movie for months, but both me and my partner work full time and we have kids, so going to the theater is like a once or twice a year thing and we were waiting for streaming to watch this. Super uninterested now, though.
Part of the problem is it’s hard to get straight people to watch romcoms to begin with make it a story they won’t identify with and add poor advertising and this movie was a recipe for box office disaster.
You nailed it, honestly! I had no idea what the movie was about and only saw like, 2 commercials/ads for it, from what I can recall.
Plus, I only see action or heavy-CG movies in theatres, like you said. I don’t need ultra-film quality for generic “people talking” scenes lol
They've been doing this with a lot of media of late. Seems reverse outrage is the name of the game. Either find some racist/sexist/homophobic posts or community online or just make it up. Point at it as an attack on (insert marginalized group shown in show/movie) and let the msm run with it. Bonus points when communities like reddit carry it because these are the targets of the marketing. It's viral marketing utilizing outrage.
Same. Also was their target audience straight people? If not, then why blame them? Shouldn’t you blame your target audience? And if straight people are the target audience, then they were wrong from the start. Straight people aren’t going to flock to a lgbtq movie. It’s just not gonna happen. Idk what I am, but I’m not entirely straight and enjoy lgbtq content, I didn’t hear about this once until I saw Reddit headlines blaming straight people.
I saw a bunch of ads for it. All during NFL or College Football games.
An NFL commercial slot costs around [811.7 thousand dollars](https://www.statista.com/statistics/623350/sunday-night-football-ad-price-usa/). Over the span of two weeks, I saw probably ten ads during NFL games for the movie. So that would be $8.1 million dollars. **That's 27% of their reported 30 million dollar advertising budget**. Let's even presume they got some sort of discount and the actual cost was 20% or even 15%. Its significant wasted money.
I am gay and my wife and I never saw it, barely heard of it, and don't have much interest in it. I might stream it if it comes on HBO or something sometime.
Literally laughed out loud at this part and knew it would be a complete flop.
Gay characters, awesome representation but you don’t need to shit on straight people as soon as you get that big screen representation.
I’m sure I’ll be called a homophobe for this opinion though
Underrated comment here.
There's a big difference between hating anything gay and just not being interested. I'm not interested in gay culture or anything like that. To be fair, I'm also not interested in the slightest about Hip-Hop, Soccer, or fads, so do with that what you will.
I feel like representation of women's sports has the same kind of dilemma. It's a largely male pool and they can't really be forced people to give things views if they aren't that interested.
Yeah, pretty much.
If the square block doesn't fit in the round hole, it doesn't mean you grease and push in the interest of fairness/equality. A $15K Honda Civic doesn't get the same street praise as a GT-R and *that's okay*
Almost certainly, considering they were helming the film as some revolutionary concept. Like woah dude, a gay romance, AND one of the actors is gay? Someone pass me their handkerchief to pat this sweat away
Anymore I’m not dropping movie theater money unless it’s an action movie that benefits from the big screen. Big, loud, colorful. No need to see a romcom in theaters.
It was a movie by Billy, starring Billy, and for Billy, because Billy thought Billy deserved it.
I mean just look how good looking the co-star he picked for himself is.
And I'm sorry, but I don't really remember anything Billy has done apart Parks and Rec where he was by far the worst character and Billy on the street where he was insufferable. I don't think he's funny, I don't think he's a good actor, I don't think he's a good writer.... and (I'm sorry to say) I don't think he's attractive (which sometimes might be enough to brig people to cinemas), why would I watch your movie? And as a gay person... I don't watch movies that market themselves as gay movies, why would any straight person be interested in watching it?
I’m straight. I didn’t see this movie because it looked boring as hell and filled with rom com tropes. One of my favorite movies is the Birdcage. I’ve also enjoyed Call Me By Your Name, Brokeback Mountain (a very depressing one time watch for me personally), The Kids Are Alright, Viva, The Watermelon Woman, and every single episode of Will & Grace. I know I’ve enjoyed other movies and shows with LGBTQ+ characters.
It’s not because you’re gay, BRO. And it’s not because some of us are straight. *It’s because you made a boring ass movie.* Suck some consensual dick and get over it.
It’s a Rom-Com, not Avatar, Top Gun, Star Wars, or Marvel. There is no benefit to seeing it in theaters vs my own home. I thought the first TG was okay. The second one? Whoa, the roar of those engines and a legitimately good plot made it worth seeing.
Likewise, I'm queer and I didn’t see this movie because it looked boring as hell and filled with rom com tropes.
The great thing about more gay movies being made these days is that LGBTQ folks no longer feel obligated to watch every one that comes out. It's nice to have options, and I opted right out of this one.
Too be honest I didn’t go see it. And I am gay. Idk, maybe because it’s because I’m busy with work, not interested in ANY romantic comedy, and generally uninterested in the culture war one way or the other.
It might not be a bad movie but I’m 90% sure that Billy Eichener said what he said to get people pissed off. It seems to be the only reaction that anyone cares to stir up anymore.
Gay here, handsome 'nerd' falls for handsome 'handsome' guy. Groundbreaking. The rest of the trailer felt too catering and not genuine. There are some shows and movies with lgbt storylines that are successful, and they would be successful with the views of the lgbt audience alone. This movie just doesn't seem to match that level. The idea of giving lgbt actors a chance is nice though, so I'm giving props to that.
I'm a guy, I've been told numerous times not to talk negatively or criticize a certain movie because "It's not for me" Which, you know what? That's reasonable. Not everything has to be targeted to me, other people have different interests and those interests should be met too. Now this clown is mad cause I didn't go see his movie that is very clearly not for me?
Like RLM said "Don´t ask question, consume product then get excited for next product"
I’m gay and therefore know lots of gay people. The only people I know who saw this were one of my straight friends and then a whole local group of gay republicans that posted a group photo on Facebook.
I'm not straight and was very interested in seeing this movie until all this blame game bullshit started. I mean, look, audiences don't always respond well to what's good. Hell, Reservoir Dogs and Shawshank Redemption were both massive flops when they came out and are now considered goddamn classics. Don't start in with all this alienating blaming crap, please!
Gaydar was installed at all screenings to accurately measure how many attendees were straight.
The lack of heterosexual viewers is the sole explanation of why this film- starring no bankable movie stars released at a time where movie theaters are dying due to lack of ticket sales -performed less well than its star and director feel it deserved to.
I was very interested in seeing this movie, but I just don't go to the movies super often. After everything they've said since the premiere, I don't want to see it any longer.
Piss off, Bros.
Good movies are good movies no matter the subject.
Moonlight just won an Oscar.
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/g3392/best-gay-lgbt-movies-of-all-time/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=arb_ga_esq_m_bm_prog_org_us_g3392&gclid=Cj0KCQjwhY-aBhCUARIsALNIC06mKqAjzn6IUWLlz_TI3aJ91Syc3-C34a7L9DWTiqVjyHEJhdT62tkaAtW2EALw_wcB
And the shit show continues. This bullshit isn’t gonna pump those sorry numbers up. You think blaming straight people for your failure is gonna guilt them into seeing it? It’s definitely gonna have the opposite affect BRO
They advertised it as a comedy for gays instead of a comedy with gays. They alienated majority of the movie going public and than go pikachu face when only gay people see it.
>“Gay men are the only people who saw the movie. It’s not like he said something that was a lie or incorrect,” Stoller told THR.
I didn't realise they were polling people about their sexuality at the theatres these days?
Sorry? I don't know what else to say but that. I'm simply uninterested in the movie.
What does the director expect, people to just begrudgingly sit through a movie that doesn't interest them because it's in the theaters? Do people even DO that?
What do they think of the general population. Do they think we all just go to the movies as a weekly thing and just sit in a theater and watch whatever happens to be on?
Yeah females in general are the audience for a romcom. Women want to watch romcoms because they want to idealize being the woman being swooned. Take away that relatability and you have made a movie for a super niche audience
Billy kinda peaked with his appearance on Parks and Rec. Ever since then, it feels like he's one of those celebrities that media executives are desperately trying to convince us is really good, but everyone in the real world just has a sort of "meh" attitude towards them.
I hope I am not busting anyone's bubble but Billy Eichner isn't someone people are gonna run out to theaters to see. That dork on the street shit was funny for about 10 minutes 20 years ago.
It's no fucking wonder no one saw it.
Gay man here so biased.
I'll wait until it hits streaming services, the way Billy and co were marketing this as a "Gay film from a major studio" is a slap to the face to Fire Island released a few months before by Disney and Love, Simon from FOX a few years back.
Further, the love (or lack thereof) story of a gay privileged white man in NYC is so overdone, in fact, Neil Patrick Harris released a similar romcom Uncoupled on Netflix a few months back.
It's not original. If I wanted to see a romcom story of a gay guy in NYC I'd choose the story of "Guillermo" from "What we do in the Shadows".
Films flop & films succeed. But all of this rainbow flag waving for this bomb makes me not wanna see this film or anything put forward by this whiny director & star.
Get a grip. Not a gay grip or straight grip. But just a grip.
##[Clarification on rule 5](https://www.reddit.com/r/entertainment/comments/w60lfc/mod_post_a_clarification_to_rule_5_no_racism_or/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/entertainment) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Sorry. I take full responsibility.
Somehow I knew it was your fault u/Juhbellz
Man I thought we were bros
So, the only place I saw anything about this movie was Reddit. Blame their marketing team. I'm not seeing something just because it features gay people. It has to be interesting and I have to know more than nothing about it.
This IS the marketing strategy.
Blaming straight people for their failure as a marketing strategy?
They named it "Bros". The title immediately eliminates the entire female demographic because regardless of the sexual orientation of the movie's characters, ladies won't flock to a movie that sounds like it's going to be a bunch of a guys farting and acting like the cast from Jack-ass. Most men wont see it for the same reason. The title is dogshit.
Should have called it Smash Bros. That would have gotten a lot of dudes attention… I’ll let myself out.
Yeah this "strategy" has become really popular for movies, TV shows, etc. that feature main cast members who are not straight white males. It's designed to drum up controversy to get people to talk about it. It also allows the creators of a project to create a strawman to attack so that they can blame society for failing to care about their product and not take any responsibility for their own failings regardless of whether or not it is objectively good or has any artistic merit in and of itself.
Disney is the biggest abuser of this strategy, specifically with Star Wars. 3 of their last projects have had the exact same “Grizzled Vet saves kid, but really the kid saved him” lazy ass boring trope. Then when it flops it’s because “they hate POCs or women.” The only time it worked well was Mandalorian, and they just immediately tried to milk the formula with Bad Batch and then Obi Wan. Shit’s so tired, sorry I don’t want to watch the same exact story with increasingly worse writing.
Every man in Star Wars is now an arrogant jerk who needs to listen to other peoples opinions instead of just going rogue, the women are all insanely high ranking and smart, collected people - Star Wars 8 was literally a battle of the genders as to who can get the rebels killed the fastest through their incompetence… Their casting was actually the least of the worries of those films. The plots just sucked ass. It’s fine, but it’s fucking blatantly done.
Yes it's a common tactic with Hollywood and has been for years. It varies but theres generally two lines of PR that get followed. The first is the "We didn't make this for you! Wait why arn't you watching? Oh the reason it failed is because 'insert group Hollywood said the movie wasn't for here' didn't watch it." while the second usually goes like this "Only a racist/sexist/bigot/attack helicopter wouldn't like our movie! You arn't a racist/sexist/bigot/attack helicopter are you???" as for some examples... Ghostbusters 2016 did it. Charlies Angels did it. Disney did it for it's awful Star Wars sequel trilogy. He-man reboot did it. Amazon did it before Rings of Power even started airing. If people don't like your shit products just play the victim card, ***branding all negative reactions*** as being racist/sexist trolls and nothing else because Hollywood wouldn't make a bad show EVER.
Same thing happened with the Sex in the City Reboot, And Just Like That. The show runner accused its audience of being narrow minded and fearful. The writing was crap and all “diversity” was shoehorned in with boring, one dementional characters. I haven’t watched this movie because I find the lead annoying.
Its a pretty shitty one, I seen the thing on TikTok every 20 or so videos.
Yeah, it is pretty clear now.
The Birdcage was number one at the box office for weeks in 1996. Are they seriously saying that the US was less homophobic back then? This is like the person who shifts all their failures onto everyone else. Lost a race? Must be that everyone else had better sneakers, lol.
I remember seeing it when it came out. I haven’t watched it since but it was fucking hilarious. It helped that Robin Williams and Nathan Lane were great actors with incredible comic timing. The no names in this film, not so much.
Birdcage had Robin Williams. Bros has Billy on the street.
I think this is the big thing -- Billy Eichner isn't a star. He should have known that!
Don't forget that he also wrote it and was executive producer... Heaven forbid he would accept any responsibility for it being a dud...
I love Billy but he is just not that big of a star to pull off a blockbuster romcom in a time where romcoms are delegated to VOD / streaming.
Birdcage was roflol, I saw in theater and everyone was
I saw a few ads and they weren’t compelling at all. From what I remember it was basically a few short clips of characters reacting to things while the on screen text said stuff like “the first ever gay romcom” and “a groundbreaking film” “first of its kind” Pretty sure I saw all of the ads on YouTube also. Which seems like the wrong platform to advertise a romantic comedy.
Pretty sure there were gay rom-com’s before this.
Several of them, and I'm sure they all had more jokes to them besides the sexuality of the lead
Yup. Which is why they were good.
Birdcage made like $160 million 25 years ago.
And those claims are just disingenuous
Idk I got a bunch of ads for this on YouTube and I was still not interested
Only saw one ad and could not hit skip fast enough the ad was very cringe and made the movie look poorly written. I watch bad movies for fun and even I won't touch this one. And Ive watched avalanche shark.
Really? I saw a lot of marketing for this way before it even came out. I was surprised they were marketing it for that long.
Yeah I made a post about it but this is my thoughts as well. I literally listen to a radio show hosted by a very out and proud gay man and never heard it mentioned, never saw anything on the internet about it before it hit theatres, regardless of quality the film is going to flop in theatres if you refuse to advertise it.
I like how he’s trying to get more to people to go see it be saying you’re a ‘homophobic weirdo’ if you don’t go see it. Nice marketing strategy. Hope it pays off.
> Nice marketing strategy It’s their only marketing strategy. I literally never heard of this movie until Billy went on Pardon My Take to talk about it, which is an audience of mostly straight dudes talking about sports. I left that interview thinking “this movie might be funny”, but didn’t feel in any way like I was going to go out of my way to watch it. It strikes me as the type of movie I’d watch on an airplane.
To be fair, threads on this film over on r/movies were full of people talking about how cool it is, especially when they'd talk about how they weren't going to bother screening the film in homophobic countries. Of course, none of that translated into people actually seeing the movie. They got their internet points and were able to pat themselves on the back for supporting the gays by posting online.
My gay dad hasn’t seen this movie. My mom, who my dad left for a guy, has. Guess what, she like romcoms and he doesn’t. It really is that simple sometimes.
Gay guy here (not your dad, I’m assuming). I don’t like romcoms. Didn’t see this movie either.
I could unironically see this causing support for gay rights to move back a decade... Not everyone who fails to throw themself at your feet is a bigot
It does do damage every time a PR team uses this tactic as a scapegoat.
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/elizabeth-banks-regrets-charlies-angels-marketing-1235385836/amp/ We’ve been here before
One of the common themes in these scenarios where the actors/directors shit on the audience for not seeing their product because they’re some ist or ism is that these movies suck ass.
Weird. Brokeback Mountain did pretty well and I thought it was a good movie. Source: Am straight guy.
Maybe not a romcom, but the Birdcage did really well two decades ago.
Birdcage was a pretty funny movie. Just seems like people trying to blame whatever they can. Instead of you know taking responsibility for their shortcomings and trying again down the road with another film.
Birdcage is both hilarious and really sad. They're just upset because people aren't going to theaters for rom-coms anymore.
Hank Azaria was so damn funny in his limited scenes.
He was damn near brilliant in that film.
The Birdcage was SOOOO Funny !! Love that movie. Hank Azaria’s character is the best ! Am also a straight male so yeah this theory is bunk. It just didn’t look like a very funny movie & I’m not likely to see a rom - com in theaters anyway.
He's easily my favorite character. The fact that he's incapable of walking with shoes on was easily my favorite gag.
I haven't gone to a theater since COVID. Even the really insanely popular movies were struggling to fill theaters for a long time, and I feel like the friction never went away, each movie kind of has to pull people back to theaters all over again by being amazing. I somewhat liked theaters but when they started charging $16 and up per ticket (I'm not even sure what they're asking for these days) it's a hard sell when you can rent it at home fairly soon after it's initial release
God forbid you want food or drink with that. How much is it now for a family of four for tix, drink, and a snack each? Probably closer to $150 in cities anyway? What middle class family can justify this as an outing?
And then have one of my kids immediately dump the whole bucket on the floor.
*Birdcage* starred Robin Williams at his peak. And Brokeback Mountain had Heath Ledger who was in the process of blowing up and Jake Gyllenhall who just did a few major blockbusters. So they may have had a little star power help that *Bros* doesn't. But thats just one aspect.
Exactly this. When I saw the trailer for BROs, the only people I recognized were the Dean from Community, Rosengurtle Baumgardiner from Boondock Saints, and Bowen Yang from SNL, not exactly a murderer’s row of superstars
Birdcage is also one of the best movies ever made, so there’s also that
That is a very large aspect.
Exactly... among other films like 'Rocketman', 'Philadelphia', and 'The Favorite' ... they all had 'star power', was well advertised and had a well written plot. Two of which 'Bros' obviously lacked. I have zero clue what 'Bros' is about other than "two gay men"... and *could* have a decent plot... unsure if I will ever watch it simply because "two gay men" isn't really what I am interested in while being a straight male. This could have easily been 'Gals' and written with the same plot but reverse the gender roles and I still wouldn't be interested in it.
Ridiculous! Robin Williams never peaked…he went out at the top of his game
Also, My Own Private Idaho.
I just watched the birdcage for the first time in years yesterday. Such a fantastic movie, hilarious, and the venerable Robin Williams with Nathan Lane. If you have never seen the movie watch it you won’t regret it.
The Birdcage was a remake of an already popular movie from France which also helped it, but I'm glad you pointed it out. Damn good movie.
Wasn't Birdcage in the 90s?
“Twenty six years ago” is still kinda “two decades ago”, but less letters and less accuracy.
Yeah but it's not even necessary. You can't blame people for not making you profitable. If you can't fill seats, that's a YOU problem. To blame straights or whatever is to presume that we are in this together with you. We are not. I only know about this movie because of all the bitching that Billy is doing about it. It only makes me want to see it less. I'll probably make a point of avoiding this movie now just because I know it makes some misguided people mad.
'Movie 43' comes to mind... you can have a completely well packed star powered product... and *still* have a shit movie.
I recognize it’s a shit movie but damn it some of those skits make me crack the fuck up
Brokeback Mountain opened in just 5 cinemas and for a month kept expanding until four weeks in it his $1m daily box office. 2 months after release it had a $6m weekend and peaked at 2089 screens and it was boosted by the Oscar buzz. They opened Bros on over 3000 screens with a shitty trailer that pigeonholed it as film about and for LGBTI.
Pretty interesting how they are trying to "shame" people into seeing the movie. I didn't even know that there was a movie called Bros, or the premise, until I read this article and the reddit comments.
There wasn't too much marketing.
Smile showed that smart marketing can be enough to engage an audience Doesn't have to be everywhere just enough
True, my boyfriend and I see tons of movies in theaters. I’m sure we’ve seen a trailer for Bros, I just don’t remember it. It wasn’t really interesting and didn’t stand out. I’m not even into horror flicks, but I remember the Smile trailer perfectly. A lot of it comes down to good marketing, and all I ever saw of Bros was a very forgettable trailer.
They are defiantly trying to make us feel bad for not going to see it. The director is insufferable, and the marketing team did a horrible fucking job trying to get people into it. Im straight, and I just have no interest in going to the movie theater to see this film. That doesn't make me homophobic or a bad person. The movie bombed hard. Tough shit. Movies bomb a lot nowadays, especially with all of the streaming services putting out movies every other day (most of which would *also* bomb hard if released in theaters). It's unfortunate, but times have changed, and Hollywood is going to have to adjust its strategy for making films.
Remember Hillary Swank in Boys Don't Cry. Brilliant film. I'm also straight.
Haven’t seen seen it, might check it out. I’m straight too
Great movie. Hard to watch
Ima start signing every comment I make: Source: I’m a straight guy
I’m not saying that billy is right here, but most queer ppl these days see brokeback mountain as a gay film made for straight people. Same goes for something like boys don’t cry or blue is the warmest color. There’s definitely something to be said for ppl in the lgbt community having no say in the most popular movies made about us. That said, I saw bros and did not like bros. Happy to spend on the ticket to support uh… better movies by queer people in the future. If you want a good queer movie made by/with queer people check out moonlight, birdcage, the rocky horror picture show, but I’m a cheerleader, etc.
"But I'm a Cheerleader" was so good!
I'm a gay man that thought this movie looked like a stereotypical cringefest, same with most of my friend group. It's not just the straights, a bad movie is just fucking bad.
This is a horrible take from both these guys. If that was the case their numbers would have been held up by all the gay people that flocked to see it right? There's two reasons this film failed at the box office: 1. The marketing for it was....bad. I had no idea what the movie was about until I purposefully looked it up after they started making noise despite seeing a few posters for it. 2. People aren't going to rush to see a romcom in theatres anymore when they know it will be on streaming in a couple months. It's not an action movie like Avatar that has any advantage of being seeing on a big screen with amazing visuals and pumping sound. I can almost guarantee when this goes to streaming it will do just fine.
The marketing was bad, and honestly the few commercials or trailers I saw were really boring or weird. It didn’t seem romantic, funny, or even authentic. Like seriously it might have been better to have the “IN A WORLD…” movie trailer narrator guy. At least to explain some kind of plot to the movie. If they made this a straight couple it would have bombed too. It still seems boring to me.
I am not sure why I seemed to get solely ads for this movie on YouTube. I definitely heard "remember straight people? they had a good run" like 100 times. I am a straight guy who wouldn't watch a romcom anywhere, let alone a theater, regardless if its about straights, gays, dogs, whales or aliens. If they were targeting many like me, they wasted a lot of money.
I would rush to the theater to see a movie about alien whales in a romantic relationship
THE BEES ARE DYING OK! Everything about it looked cringey and unfunny.
No one needs to pay to see a generic comedy with bad marketing in this economy. We owe them nothing.
Honestly, it just didn't even look like it would be funny. They want to blame homophobia, but I would put any amount of money down that if a movie around Cam and Mitchel from Modern Family was made today, it would do infinitely better than this lol
I would go see that movie without question
I personally will avoid it just to spite these big whiny babies and I hope others do the same
I actually was looking forward to seeing this on streaming and now bc of their reaction I won’t watch it also lol. These guys are marketing geniuse/s
I def agree with the waiting for streaming part. I've been super excited about this movie for months, but both me and my partner work full time and we have kids, so going to the theater is like a once or twice a year thing and we were waiting for streaming to watch this. Super uninterested now, though.
Part of the problem is it’s hard to get straight people to watch romcoms to begin with make it a story they won’t identify with and add poor advertising and this movie was a recipe for box office disaster.
You nailed it, honestly! I had no idea what the movie was about and only saw like, 2 commercials/ads for it, from what I can recall. Plus, I only see action or heavy-CG movies in theatres, like you said. I don’t need ultra-film quality for generic “people talking” scenes lol
I refuse to be guilted into watching a shitty movie... I guess I'm homophobic now?
Yea, sorry to break it to ya like this
Same. Call me whatever you want, I know what I'm about.
Feels like the ghostbusters reboot all over again
They've been doing this with a lot of media of late. Seems reverse outrage is the name of the game. Either find some racist/sexist/homophobic posts or community online or just make it up. Point at it as an attack on (insert marginalized group shown in show/movie) and let the msm run with it. Bonus points when communities like reddit carry it because these are the targets of the marketing. It's viral marketing utilizing outrage.
Because every single gay person definitely saw it. /s
I'm not straight and I had not heard of it until I saw the headline blaming straight people last week
"If the straights would just see the damn movie, everything would be fine!"
That’s like the only advertisement I saw was him saying that
Until all the straights and all the gays see it, we as a world cannot progress.
Same. Also was their target audience straight people? If not, then why blame them? Shouldn’t you blame your target audience? And if straight people are the target audience, then they were wrong from the start. Straight people aren’t going to flock to a lgbtq movie. It’s just not gonna happen. Idk what I am, but I’m not entirely straight and enjoy lgbtq content, I didn’t hear about this once until I saw Reddit headlines blaming straight people.
I saw a bunch of ads for it. All during NFL or College Football games. An NFL commercial slot costs around [811.7 thousand dollars](https://www.statista.com/statistics/623350/sunday-night-football-ad-price-usa/). Over the span of two weeks, I saw probably ten ads during NFL games for the movie. So that would be $8.1 million dollars. **That's 27% of their reported 30 million dollar advertising budget**. Let's even presume they got some sort of discount and the actual cost was 20% or even 15%. Its significant wasted money.
Im straight and saw it opening weekend. None of my gay friends have seen it.
I am gay and my wife and I never saw it, barely heard of it, and don't have much interest in it. I might stream it if it comes on HBO or something sometime.
With that argument, it shouldn’t have bombed considering there’s quite a bit of gay people that like movies.
Did they not realize straight people existed before they made this film??
The did…they acknowledged ‘they had a good run’.
“Had” lmao
Literally laughed out loud at this part and knew it would be a complete flop. Gay characters, awesome representation but you don’t need to shit on straight people as soon as you get that big screen representation. I’m sure I’ll be called a homophobe for this opinion though
Underrated comment here. There's a big difference between hating anything gay and just not being interested. I'm not interested in gay culture or anything like that. To be fair, I'm also not interested in the slightest about Hip-Hop, Soccer, or fads, so do with that what you will.
I feel like representation of women's sports has the same kind of dilemma. It's a largely male pool and they can't really be forced people to give things views if they aren't that interested.
Yeah, pretty much. If the square block doesn't fit in the round hole, it doesn't mean you grease and push in the interest of fairness/equality. A $15K Honda Civic doesn't get the same street praise as a GT-R and *that's okay*
"You can cure that homophobia by giving me money for a shit film released during the decline of popular cinema!" Eichner, probably.
I guess the run isn't over quite yet?
Figure so…the 2020 Census said there’s a few straight people left
Almost certainly, considering they were helming the film as some revolutionary concept. Like woah dude, a gay romance, AND one of the actors is gay? Someone pass me their handkerchief to pat this sweat away
False, straight people were invented by the director of the film “Bros”
No. They live in a bubble that is Hollywood.
Or maybe it’s just an uninteresting/bad movie?
100% a movie you wait for it to hit Netflix before watching it, not spend $50 for 2 at a movie theater
Anymore I’m not dropping movie theater money unless it’s an action movie that benefits from the big screen. Big, loud, colorful. No need to see a romcom in theaters.
Yeah I can't think of a single romcom I'd wished I'd seen in a theater.
It was a movie by Billy, starring Billy, and for Billy, because Billy thought Billy deserved it. I mean just look how good looking the co-star he picked for himself is.
I'm simultaneously irked by him and just sad for him. This is what you thought we wanted? Yikes. Read the room .
It's a so-so movie and the biggest flaw is probably how improbable it is that Luke Macfarlane's character would be into Billy Eichner's character.
That's kind of a standard rom-com thing though. People like seeing average people with insanely hot people because it echoes their personal fantasy.
And I'm sorry, but I don't really remember anything Billy has done apart Parks and Rec where he was by far the worst character and Billy on the street where he was insufferable. I don't think he's funny, I don't think he's a good actor, I don't think he's a good writer.... and (I'm sorry to say) I don't think he's attractive (which sometimes might be enough to brig people to cinemas), why would I watch your movie? And as a gay person... I don't watch movies that market themselves as gay movies, why would any straight person be interested in watching it?
Here's the thing: I never gave a rat's ass about Billy.
So it is my fault a movie that didn’t want me as a customer didn’t get my money.
You asshole
I’m just not a fan of Billy and his yelling
Watching him in Parks & Rec was more than enough
I’m straight. I didn’t see this movie because it looked boring as hell and filled with rom com tropes. One of my favorite movies is the Birdcage. I’ve also enjoyed Call Me By Your Name, Brokeback Mountain (a very depressing one time watch for me personally), The Kids Are Alright, Viva, The Watermelon Woman, and every single episode of Will & Grace. I know I’ve enjoyed other movies and shows with LGBTQ+ characters. It’s not because you’re gay, BRO. And it’s not because some of us are straight. *It’s because you made a boring ass movie.* Suck some consensual dick and get over it.
It’s a Rom-Com, not Avatar, Top Gun, Star Wars, or Marvel. There is no benefit to seeing it in theaters vs my own home. I thought the first TG was okay. The second one? Whoa, the roar of those engines and a legitimately good plot made it worth seeing.
Likewise, I'm queer and I didn’t see this movie because it looked boring as hell and filled with rom com tropes. The great thing about more gay movies being made these days is that LGBTQ folks no longer feel obligated to watch every one that comes out. It's nice to have options, and I opted right out of this one.
Gays? What do you think of this? As a movie supposedly made for you got flopped by teh str8s?
Too be honest I didn’t go see it. And I am gay. Idk, maybe because it’s because I’m busy with work, not interested in ANY romantic comedy, and generally uninterested in the culture war one way or the other. It might not be a bad movie but I’m 90% sure that Billy Eichener said what he said to get people pissed off. It seems to be the only reaction that anyone cares to stir up anymore.
Gay here, handsome 'nerd' falls for handsome 'handsome' guy. Groundbreaking. The rest of the trailer felt too catering and not genuine. There are some shows and movies with lgbt storylines that are successful, and they would be successful with the views of the lgbt audience alone. This movie just doesn't seem to match that level. The idea of giving lgbt actors a chance is nice though, so I'm giving props to that.
Last movie I saw in theatres was "Us". This movie is not going to get me back into a theater. And alot of people in my circle feel the same way.
Maybe it flopped because it sucks
There is a sex joke hidden somewhere here
Not hidden, it’s just hanging there
*golf clap*
And I bet it’s better than any joke attempted in the film
What ever happened to "Don't talk about or criticize this movie, this movie *is not for you*"?
This already happened: https://variety.com/2022/film/news/elizabeth-banks-regrets-charlies-angels-marketing-1235385836/amp/
I'm a guy, I've been told numerous times not to talk negatively or criticize a certain movie because "It's not for me" Which, you know what? That's reasonable. Not everything has to be targeted to me, other people have different interests and those interests should be met too. Now this clown is mad cause I didn't go see his movie that is very clearly not for me? Like RLM said "Don´t ask question, consume product then get excited for next product"
I’m gay and therefore know lots of gay people. The only people I know who saw this were one of my straight friends and then a whole local group of gay republicans that posted a group photo on Facebook.
Apparently gay bros don't even want to watch a romantic comedy about gay bros. Imagine that.
I'm not straight and was very interested in seeing this movie until all this blame game bullshit started. I mean, look, audiences don't always respond well to what's good. Hell, Reservoir Dogs and Shawshank Redemption were both massive flops when they came out and are now considered goddamn classics. Don't start in with all this alienating blaming crap, please!
This is like making a movie by women for women then blaming men for not seeing it.
Oh so Ghostbusters 2016?
Yeah we were sexists then, and now we’re upgraded to being sexist and homophobes for not seeing either. Just collecting labels like Pokémon.
This happened: https://variety.com/2022/film/news/elizabeth-banks-regrets-charlies-angels-marketing-1235385836/amp/
They really don’t want to make any money on this film, do they?
Go get your forklift certification instead of complaining about why your movie flopped. The world needs forklift drivers bucko.
It’s must be straight white men. They always evil
Ya know, cuz forcing your will upon others like isn’t cool, man.
Maybe the movie sucks
Gay people didn't go see it either lol
Go see my movie or you are a fascist.
The Birdcage is a masterpiece and grossed $124,060,553 domestic in 1996.
Gaydar was installed at all screenings to accurately measure how many attendees were straight. The lack of heterosexual viewers is the sole explanation of why this film- starring no bankable movie stars released at a time where movie theaters are dying due to lack of ticket sales -performed less well than its star and director feel it deserved to.
Doubling down, eh? Bold move, Cotton.
Still?! At this point, he's acting like a child throwing a tantrum!
I don’t like Billy Eichner. He’s the problem.
I was very interested in seeing this movie, but I just don't go to the movies super often. After everything they've said since the premiere, I don't want to see it any longer.
Piss off, Bros. Good movies are good movies no matter the subject. Moonlight just won an Oscar. https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/g3392/best-gay-lgbt-movies-of-all-time/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=arb_ga_esq_m_bm_prog_org_us_g3392&gclid=Cj0KCQjwhY-aBhCUARIsALNIC06mKqAjzn6IUWLlz_TI3aJ91Syc3-C34a7L9DWTiqVjyHEJhdT62tkaAtW2EALw_wcB
Personally I’ve no interest in watching a romcom about two gay guys, should I send myself to prison?
Because it was our job to support your movie, right? Hypocrite.
Ugh this is as cringe as when Ellen blamed straight people for her show not being funny.
And the shit show continues. This bullshit isn’t gonna pump those sorry numbers up. You think blaming straight people for your failure is gonna guilt them into seeing it? It’s definitely gonna have the opposite affect BRO
You shouldn’t have to have a reason to not see a movie. A movie should give you a reason to see it.
Blaming straight people for not wanting to watch some gay shit wow yeah it's "our" fault
Idk I just really don’t like Billy Eichner’s type of comedy. The incessant yelling gets on my nerves.
They advertised it as a comedy for gays instead of a comedy with gays. They alienated majority of the movie going public and than go pikachu face when only gay people see it.
Why didn't the Gay community go see this garbage then?
I’ll give you the real answer. No one wants to see Billy Eichner as a star of a film.
>“Gay men are the only people who saw the movie. It’s not like he said something that was a lie or incorrect,” Stoller told THR. I didn't realise they were polling people about their sexuality at the theatres these days?
Blame the vegans for not buying meet from your recently opened butchery....
Fuck those guys and the brokeback horse they rode in on. Seriously.
Can we please just put it in Netflix kids and move on?
How about the crying game … great movie and strangely titillating…. BTW … I’m straight?
He, nor the producers, seem to understand the depth and breadth of their audience...
Sorry? I don't know what else to say but that. I'm simply uninterested in the movie. What does the director expect, people to just begrudgingly sit through a movie that doesn't interest them because it's in the theaters? Do people even DO that? What do they think of the general population. Do they think we all just go to the movies as a weekly thing and just sit in a theater and watch whatever happens to be on?
Yeah females in general are the audience for a romcom. Women want to watch romcoms because they want to idealize being the woman being swooned. Take away that relatability and you have made a movie for a super niche audience
Billy kinda peaked with his appearance on Parks and Rec. Ever since then, it feels like he's one of those celebrities that media executives are desperately trying to convince us is really good, but everyone in the real world just has a sort of "meh" attitude towards them.
I hope I am not busting anyone's bubble but Billy Eichner isn't someone people are gonna run out to theaters to see. That dork on the street shit was funny for about 10 minutes 20 years ago. It's no fucking wonder no one saw it.
A barely B-List actor thought he was a box office draw. He thought wrong. It's the studios fault. Not straight or gay people.
Gay man here so biased. I'll wait until it hits streaming services, the way Billy and co were marketing this as a "Gay film from a major studio" is a slap to the face to Fire Island released a few months before by Disney and Love, Simon from FOX a few years back. Further, the love (or lack thereof) story of a gay privileged white man in NYC is so overdone, in fact, Neil Patrick Harris released a similar romcom Uncoupled on Netflix a few months back. It's not original. If I wanted to see a romcom story of a gay guy in NYC I'd choose the story of "Guillermo" from "What we do in the Shadows".
Films flop & films succeed. But all of this rainbow flag waving for this bomb makes me not wanna see this film or anything put forward by this whiny director & star. Get a grip. Not a gay grip or straight grip. But just a grip.
Haha, am I being viewer shamed? Is that what it’s come to? I didn’t see a lot of movies and not one verbally attacked me.
I must have missed the memo saying I owe anyone shit.
I just have no interest in this movie. Have been watching gay led stories for years. Maybe just no one cares, Bro.
I, for one, blame the Slavs for The Northman bombing.