Box office: The curious case of Under the Silver Lake
By Wesley Lara
Avengers: Endgame is the rage at the box office right now, which is great for Disney and Marvel, but unfortunately not very beneficial for David Robert Mitchell’s unique neo-noir comedy, Under the Silver Lake. What happened to this once-promising A24 flick?
The business of Hollywood may look glamorous from the distance, what with the shining lights and aspiring young artists looking to make a name for themselves in the industry. But underneath it all, the business of making it big in the world of Hollywood is cutthroat and ruthless.
Competitiveness drives Hollywood, and by extension, the film industry, which means that the smaller projects with niche intentions are often thrown to the wayside out of a lack of demand from the general audience.
It’s this business that allows superhero movies to flourish in the world of Hollywood. The land of men and women in tights fighting an otherwordly monster that threatens the nature of humanity is a rich one, consistently breaking box office records and bringing back people who swore that last month’s superhero affair was their last one for a while. Just this year alone, there have been three major superhero releases and one of them, Avengers: Endgame, just debuted with a record $1.2 billion worldwide over its weekend.
It’s this type of monster success that has led the film to practically bury all of its competition in the dirt, even forcing theaters to accommodate to the high demand by replacing less popular films with other showings of Endgame. This was already a bad deal for any film that wasn’t this one, but the high demand has led to some pretty disastrous results on the indie circuit, most notably the notoriously troubled release of the neo-noir comedy film, Under the Silver Lake.
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Distributed by A24, Under the Silver Lake was set to be the next major release for director David Robert Mitchell of It Follows fame. The film, ironically set in the murky world of Hollywood, saw Andrew Garfield play a directionless bum/socialite that goes on a bizarre L.A. odyssey after his attractive neighbor (Riley Keough) disappears overnight. However, the film explores concepts beyond the missing girl, touching on conspiracies and the emptiness that exists in pop culture. In other words, it’s not the most accessible watch in the world.
Under the Silver Lake boasts an unusually grim atmosphere that’s far from crowd-pleasing, hence why its A24 stamp of approval makes sense on the surface. A24 is known to take chances on riskier material, with films such as Hereditary, The Witch, It Comes at Night, and Lady Bird among the most successful films in their catalog. Each of those films contain an indie vibe that has come to define what an A24 is: a quirky and non-mainstream experience and Under the Silver Lake is no exception.
Tomorrow FOR SURE
Yet, the promotional campaign for Under the Silver Lake has ranged from nonexistent to plain old bizarre. The film, which premiered at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, was originally set for release the following June, complete with a trailer that currently boasts over a million views right now. But the reception for Mitchell’s noir comedy stayed firmly in the mixed section, with critics offering polarizing reactions to the film’s multiple mind-bending sequences. Some thought it genius, others considered it trashy and misogynistic.
Considering the film’s unusual content, one would believe that Mitchell and company expected this type of reaction and would confidently go forward with the film’s original release. They’ve done the same for Hereditary, so why stop here with what looks to be a less depressing movie? No matter the thought process, it nevertheless led to A24 scrapping the original June release and pushing the film back to December of 2018.
The decision to move Under the Silver Lake was made shortly after its Cannes debut, so it’s easy to assume that A24 made the choice after witnessing the film’s murky reception at the festival. In a way, it makes more sense to release it during awards season, where the film can get a higher chance at receiving awards love and boosting its own profile in the long run. It worked wonders for Green Book, so Under the Silver Lake still had a chance to break out of its slump.
Then came ANOTHER pushback. The December release ended up getting scrapped again, being pushed back to April of this year, which we have just passed. Now the film doesn’t have a chance at receiving awards nor does it have a good release date. Releasing the week before Endgame, Under the Silver Lake managed to score the highest per-theater average of the weekend, grossing about $40,000 in two theaters. A decent start that led to the film announcing a wider expansion over the next weekend.
But as the whole world knows, the next weekend belonged to Disney and the MCU with Endgame smashing box office records and forcing theaters to can smaller and less popular films to make way for more screenings of the superhero epic. Now if you look on Box Office Mojo, you’ll see that the daily earnings for Under the Silver Lake stopped being reported after last Thursday, with their being no reports since then. It’s as if the movie dropped off the face of the Earth.
Now available on VOD, the movie is readily accessible to anyone willing to watch it at home, but the utter disappearance of the film, despite its promises for expansion, lead one to question why A24 ever decided to pick up the film in the first place. A24 has distributed strange and quirky movies before (it’s basically their M.O. at this point), so their lack of confidence in the film seems rather out-of-the-blue.
Under any other circumstance, I have a suspicion that Under the Silver Lake could’ve done significantly better, not just with less monstrous competition, but with a decent marketing campaign that made use of social media. The film’s legacy is being kept alive by an interesting Reddit thread where people come to discuss the multiple theories and secrets surrounding the movie that is full of them. It borders on Cloverfield-levels of social media marketing, though not nearly as popular.
A studio against itself?
Was this movie really that inaccessible or has A24 changed up their strategy to include more accessible films? Practically the same thing happened to Sundance darling, Native Son, which was suddenly dropped on HBO with next to no marketing this past April, apart from a frustrated Ashton Sanders wondering why nobody was talking about the film. Native Son is a film that is not nearly as bizarre as Under the Silver Lake, so what gives?
It’s a shame that the film will only be able to boast just over $40,000 in box office returns despite an initially energetic marketing campaign last year. This is a case of not just bigger competition getting all of the glory or a film being too weird for people to enjoy. It looks like a case of a studio so afraid to support one of their films that they essentially give up on marketing the film at all. A24 has had their fair share of box office disappointments, but this is among one of their most notable simply because of how skeptical they were on their own film from essentially the start of the marketing campaign.
A company like A24 could’ve done wonders in marketing a unique film like Under the Silver Lake for general audiences to check out. They took the frosty audience reception of Hereditary and ran with it, boosting the film’s worldwide returns to a healthy $80 million before discs and streaming. Something similar could’ve happened here, whether it be promoting the movie’s Reddit thread on social media or offering maps of the multiple locations that Garfield’s character visits in the movie. Something unique and worth talking about at the very least.
But A24’s complete mishandling of Under the Silver Lake, topped off with Endgame’s gargantuan debut at the box office, led to Mitchell’s film being thrown away to the wayside, rendering the film an enormous box office disappointment. It’s foolish to expect the film to pull blockbuster numbers, but the film had every chance at making a decent dent at the American box office with its wild personality and social media-friendly influence.
Home media or nothing?
Now Under the Silver Lake lounges in the land of VOD, where fortunately everyone may have a chance to rent it and check it out for themselves. The film has already garnered a cult folowing, in large part due to A24’s disastrous handling of the film’s distribution, and it has a sizable social media following with Film Twitter and Reddit being very much in love with the film. The Blu Ray comes out on June 18th as well, so maybe a home release will fare better for the film.
It’s understandable that A24 would not want to spend too much money marketing a film they’re not very confident in. A studio has got to make money somehow, so that’s all clear and understandable. But to not make use of the film’s following to its advantage and dragging the film, as well as Native Son, down to a nonexistent promotional campaign followed by a muted home release is both questionable and disrespectful to the filmmakers involved in making these bold movies.
Smaller filmmakers already struggle with a system that favors superheroes and larger blockbusters, but to outright sabotage their chances at receiving some form of fame and exposure is one step closer to putting the nail in the coffin for bold indie movies that don’t have money or star power to boost its profile. It’s in these cases where the cynical cinephile shaking their hands at the hundreds of blockbuster films is a little more sympathetic in their plight against indie films being swept under the rug.
Under the Silver Lake is out now on VOD and on disc media on June 18th. Have you seen the film? Was it in theaters or at home? What did you think of the film? Sound off below!