When Terrence Malick’s “A Hidden Life” was greeted with more-than-decent reviews at the Cannes Film Festival, it got Fox Searchlight all hot and excited by jumping the gun and buying the tepid 3-hour film for an astounding $12 million. I thought it was a terrible sell then and, lo and behold, it looks like I was right as Malick’s latest opus is set to nab an opening weekend, in limited released mind you, of $49,000 dollars. Yikes.
I wrote on 05.20.19:
“Fox Searchlight has just nabbed the rights to distribute Terrence Malick's "A Hidden Life," a film so perplexing that even at the "high-brow" Cannes Film Festival there were hundreds of walkouts at the initial press screening on Monday afternoon. Don’t believe me? I was there. The film itself is incredibly problematic — you can read my review of it here. Regardless, this shows Fox must be in don’t-give-an-F mode when it comes to buying, they also have a now-or-never attitude towards nabbing a few Oscars before they are officially Disney property in 2020. However, Malick's latest film might not do it for them.”
It now looks as though Malick’s generally well-regarded is dead at the box-office.