“Asteroid City” has crashed to Earth.
The latest outing for Wes Anderson started strong on Friday with $350,000 in 6 locations.
But on Saturday that number fell to $250,000 and today they’re expecting just $190,000.
Word of mouth isn’t there, and the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes reflects that: just 50%.
Anderson’s last effort, “The French Dispatch,” made only $16 million. This one may not get there at this point.
The audience — even die hard fans of Anderson’s twee tales — may have just tired of the same thing over and over again. Long since passed are the days of his films with real stories and a few characters. Remember how charming “Bottle Rocket” and “Rushmore” were? Then came “The Royal Tennenbaums,” Anderson’s effort to bottle JD Salinger. “The Life Aquatic” made no sense, but Anderson was forgiven. He had a good then with a few films that were totally the same in style: “Darjeeling Limited,” “Grand Budapest Hotel,” and “Moonrise Kingdom.” (There was also my favorite, “The Fantastic Mr. Fox,” with Noah Baumbach.)
But enough is enough. “Isle of Dogs,” animated, never caught on. “French Dispatch” was a puzzlement.
Luckily, there’s word that Anderson’s next one may be a more slimmed down drama about a father and a daughter. There’s also a 37 minute short, though, again stuffed with stars, which will come first. (I don’t know where these “shorts” — like Pedro Almodovar’s “Brokeback Mountain” tribute- are supposed to play.)
Hope springs eternal! We’ll see when the Asteroid goes wide this Friday is there’s a bigger more enthusiastic audience.
