Billy Eichner Romantic Comedy - Nick Stoller Directing, Judd Apatow Producing

[Closerframe]

I’m not a fan of Eichner and seeing his remarks about not enough straight people willing to go see it sums up why this movie probably didn’t do well. It was being marketed as this breakthrough gay romantic comedy when it should have just focused on the jokes and the minds behind it. It’ll probably do better when it gets dumped on Netflix.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I’m not a fan of Eichner and seeing his remarks about not enough straight people willing to go see it sums up why this movie probably didn’t do well. It was being marketed as this breakthrough gay romantic comedy when it should have just focused on the jokes and the minds behind it. It’ll probably do better when it gets dumped on Netflix.

Is there any reason to think it would've done better if they had marketed it in that manner?

Also what is the issue with marketing it as a breakthrough gay romantic comedy? How would that be an issue? You mention the minds behind it, and well that's who brought you the hay romantic comedy, with the intent of that being the focal point.

 

[Closerframe]

Is there any reason to think it would've done better if they had marketed it in that manner?

Also what is the issue with marketing it as a breakthrough gay romantic comedy? How would that be an issue? You mention the minds behind it, and well that's who brought you the hay romantic comedy, with the intent of that being the focal point.

Bridesmaids didn’t market itself as an all female cast comedy. It relied on its jokes and the performances of the characters. Are the writers/director in charge of the marketing campaign? Booksmart also comes to mind as a comedy that featured a queer storyline but didn’t highlight it as being the main driving force behind its marketing campaign.

I’m just saying, an actor accusing a film’s lack of success on homophobia is a ridiculous accusation in this day and age, but the marketing could have something to do with it instead.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Bridesmaids didn’t market itself as an all female cast comedy. It relied on its jokes and the performances of the characters. Are the writers/director in charge of the marketing campaign? Booksmart also comes to mind as a comedy that featured a queer storyline but didn’t highlight it as being the main driving force behind its marketing campaign.

I’m just saying, an actor accusing a film’s lack of success on homophobia is a ridiculous accusation in this day and age, but the marketing could have something to do with it instead.

1. Bridesmaid is not an "all female cast comedy".

2. That is not the equivalate here. It would be like saying, "don't say Bridesmaid is super straight in the marketing".

3. The opening of the Bridesmaid trailer sets up the premise, which is extremely hetero, while the trailer overall is based completely around a bunch of sex and gender based humor:



4. Booksmart having a "queer storyline" is far different then the premise of the flick. The premise of Booksmart is a pair of bookworms who on the day before graduation decide they will live out their social high school dreams in one night. That said, a big part of the trailer is devoted to Dever's character being gay.

5. Bringing up a lesbian relationship as opposed to a relationship featuring two gay men isn't an apples to apples comparison.

Lesbians more accepted than gay men around the world, study finds

Not to get into it too deep, but terrible societal norms, including toxic masculinity and the objectification of women (lesbians are hot, lol) plays a big role in this.

6. Booksmart, for all the praise it got (I adore it), made 25m WW, pre pandemic. Not great. Smile made 10m more this weekend alone.

7. Would you say that Black Panther films should avoid that they are about black culture? How about successful black comedies, which almost always lean into the fact that they are in fact black comedies? And if not, what is the difference?

 

[MadVillainy]

Bridesmaids didn’t market itself as an all female cast comedy. It relied on its jokes and the performances of the characters. Are the writers/director in charge of the marketing campaign? Booksmart also comes to mind as a comedy that featured a queer storyline but didn’t highlight it as being the main driving force behind its marketing campaign.

I’m just saying, an actor accusing a film’s lack of success on homophobia is a ridiculous accusation in this day and age, but the marketing could have something to do with it instead.

Yeah Bridesmaids just marketed itself as a comedy not a woman centric one. By that I mean the jokes they showed in the marketing or wherever had better punch lines than "We're women." Booksmart as well. With Crazy Rich Asians of course with the title they can't completely avoid focusing on eastern Asian culture with the marketing, but it wasn't like most of the jokes in the trailers and the posters relied on the same punchline. Now in interviews and stuff like that the examples I gave above did talk about the diversity but they didn't make it it's marketing bread and butter like Bros did.

Looking at the marketing for most comedies vs Bros: I don't really watch trailers like that anymore so I watched the Bros trailer for the first time today. I chuckled a decent bit, but the punchline for most of the jokes in the trailer in the poster is just "I'm gay" or "He's gay" or "We're gay". It feels almost like a bad amateur comedy night. If you every noticed with a lot of smaller or new-ish comedians, most of their jokes have the same punchline. For example, with straight white guys it's usually "Women be crazy" type stuff. Those kinda jokes were funnier back in the day but they've been done to death and now they can seem kinda low effort and lazy.
The trailers for Bros makes the movie out to be like one long "gay people be like" joke and I feel like those kinda jokes have a limit on success. And I'm not saying people don't like or want LBGT centric humor. But I can see being turned off by the trailer when the jokes seem to be that lazy about it for a majority of it.
Good or even great movies can have bad trailers so it could've just been a poorly cut trailer. I guess I'll see whenever I get around to seeing this movie. But the humor shown in the trailer is pretty low effort seeming.

But at the end of the day making less than $5 mill OW shows that it wasn't just straight people not showing up. Eichner or whoever can try and push that narrative but the numbers show that people, regardless of their sexual orientation or identity, didn't care. It reminds me of when people try and blame "cancel culture" for a movie not doing well either. Just painting false or unsubstantiated narratives as copium. Comedies just don't do that well at theaters anymore. And then to release it during spooky season didn't help. On top of all that, I don't think people like Eichner that much especially in a lead role.

I hope Hollywood keeps does pushing movies with LGBT/queer leads. But blaming the failure of this movie on homophobia is just silly.

 

[Primal Slayer]

I guess I'll start the conversation of this very active post!

I didnt watch it in theaters but I see its on Peacock now so...im watching it. It's a decent film but sadly Billy/Luke do not have chemistry. But I think the basic premise would make for a very fun show in the same vein as SatC but with actual gays instead of straight women.

 

[Prison Mike]

R.I.P. Terry