Wes Anderson used to be the darling of Hollywood.
But several movies ago, his cuteness faded. He kept making the same movie over and over.
After such favorites as “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “The Royal Tennenbaums,” Anderson fell into a rut.
His last couple of offerings, like “The French Dispatch” and “Asteroid City,” drifted off into a place where no one wanted to go.
Anderson wasn’t always this twee. Thirty years ago, his first films — “Bottle Rocket” and “Rushmore” — were real movies with characters and without over stylized set designs.
On Friday, Focus Features released “The Phoenician Scheme” in 6 theatres. Total take was $270,000 as Anderson diehards turned out en masse. limited theaters.In the UK, the movie has made just $1.6 million in the last week.
“The Phoenician Scheme” has a 77% on Rotten Tomatoes, a C plus. On Metacritic, it’s 71. Audiences aren’t crazy about it. One civilian reviewer, Jason A, summed it up: “Wes Anderson is stuck. Visually stunning still but the stories are uninteresting and disjointed.”
In Cannes, there were TikTok videos of the audience pouring out of the premiere and telling interviewers that they hated it.
Still, Focus had a big premiere Thursday night as if nothing was wrong. But “Phoenician” is going to sink like a stone. It may never get more than a limited release once the novelty wears off in NY and LA.
