A24 lost $35 million on director Ari Aster‘s “Beau Is Afraid”. The film flopped. Reviews were also mixed.
In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Aster calls the film’s reception disappointing. He obviously knew he was making a polarizing movie, but that still doesn’t negate the fact that there wasn’t much enthusiasm for it.
“The film ends on a theater just very gradually emptying out over the credits, with a very indifferent audience. I wasn’t quite ready for just how prophetic that ending was going to be,” Aster said.
However, what I’m most intrigued by in this new interview is Aster’s assertions that he put many clues into the background of the film that “tell a whole other story that nobody has brought to me yet.” I’ve seen the film twice, and the second time around I did discover new things, but Aster is implying that he’s hidden Easter eggs in his film that still haven’t been uncovered.
One thing that excites me about ‘Beau’ is that there are certain things that I buried in that film that still haven’t been talked about, and I was kind of disappointed by the way people were maybe engaging with the film on first release because it was very verdict based like, ‘Well, it doesn’t all work.’ It’s like, ‘Well, wait, what doesn’t work?’
“That’s frustrating because you take the time to put them there and you wonder who’s going to catch them,” Aster added.
Aster concludes by saying that he hopes people do come to eventually “find” the film. Personally, i have no doubt that will happen. ‘Beau’ has “cult” status written all over it.
So, what exactly happened? Why did ‘Beau’ flop?
Mixed reviews, an unenthusiastic moviegoing audience and that 3-hour runtime surely didn’t help. The big miracle here is that Aster got his existential and plotless 180-minute mommy-issues movie made, and good for him.