‘Beau is Afraid’ Finishes Box-Office Run With $9.4 Million in Earnings

I’m sure A24 must have known that “Beau is Afraid” wouldn’t make that much money at the box-office. It’s far from being a crowd-pleaser. The reviews have been mixed. There’s also no awards in this film’s future.

Maybe what A24 wanted to do was to keep their relationship with Aster and bolster their brand. Either way, I have to assume someone knew this didn’t have a ton of potential for crossover success.

Despite my mixed review, I wanted this risk-taking film to, at least, make its money back, but it won’t. Not even close. ‘Beau’ is set to make a minuscule $150,000 at the box-office this weekend. When all is said and done, it’ll turn out to be the biggest bomb in A24 history, and it’s not even close.

Remember when Aster said that he couldn’t believe how “stupid” A24 was in greenlighting his $35 million passion project? He wasn’t kidding. It’s basically finished its theatrical run with a worldwide tally of $9.4 million.

With a $35 million dollar investment, this film needed close to $60 million to become profitable. I don’t think ‘Beau’ will see a profit in the digital or physical stage unless a streaming service pays good money to show it.

So, what happened?

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.

Despite my mixed sentiments about it, I really wanted such a bats*it crazy movie to make decent dough at the box-office. The arthouse is suffering and a risk-taking endeavour such as this one should be encouraged. The best case scenario at this point is that ‘Beau’ will likely become a cult classic in the years to come.