Report: ‘After the Hunt’ Cost $80M and Made $2.9M — Julia Roberts Earned $20M Payday

’Tis the season for adult-oriented cinema to bomb at the box office. Yes, the fall movie season is in full swing, and with that comes auteur-driven films failing to ignite audiences on a weekly basis. It didn’t used to be like that. Once upon a time, well-reviewed originals could churn out solid numbers at the box office. So, what’s changed?

Before you blame the pandemic — and the idea that adult audiences are now more inclined to wait for streaming — consider what Deadline’s Anthony D’Alessandro writes in his thoughtful analysis, “What’s Up With The Fallout For Adult Upscale Movies At The Fall Box Office?”

It’s a well-written piece in which D’Alessandro implies that the poor numbers don’t necessarily signal the death of auteur-driven filmmaking in Hollywood. Rather, it’s simply that the movies released this fall weren’t well liked by audiences and were, for the most part, poorly reviewed by critics.

Some of the films listed as examples: “The Smashing Machine,” “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere,” “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey,” “Anemone,” and “Kiss of the Spider-Woman.”

However, this fall’s biggest failure might just be Luca Guadagnino’s “After the Hunt.” The real shocker, according to the trade, is that this Amazon/MGM #MeToo-themed film cost around $80M to produce — what? That three-weekend gross of $2.9M now looks disastrous. Critics hated it (38% on RT), and audiences even more so, with a pathetic 23% “definite recommend” in Screen Engine/ComScore PostTrak and a C- CinemaScore.

Turns out, Amazon/MGM paid Julia Roberts $20M to star in the film. Andrew Garfield’s salary wasn’t disclosed. I guess that $80M budget makes sense if your two leads earned a third of the production costs. My first thought: how is Julia Roberts still getting $20M per movie?

Studios are largely still run by people who made their careers in an era when that made sense — when having the right big name on the poster genuinely could singlehandedly make or break a film. The idea won’t fully disappear from the studio ecosystem until people of that generation are mostly out of operational decision-making.

What this tells me is that many studios are still led by executives who built their careers in an era when star power truly determined a movie’s fate — when the right name on a poster could make or break a release. That mindset will likely persist until that generation steps back from day-to-day decision-making (and Julia Roberts stops making $20M per movie).