Last weekend, Barry Levinson’s ‘Alto Knights’ bombed. The film earned $3.2M at the domestic box office, one of the worst-ever starts for a big studio release. Overseas, it was worse — the film grossed $1.8M for a bleak worldwide tally of $5M.
A report via The New York Times zeroes in on the ‘Alto Knights’ debacle. Levinson somehow got $50M to shoot the film which has been described as Warner Bros boss David Zaslav’s “pet project” — he personally and immediately greenlit the film once he came in as Warner Bros’ head honcho.
Mr. Zaslav pushed for “The Alto Knights” shortly after taking over in 2022. Some executives at the studio pushed back, saying the box office prospects were grim — it was a film for a streaming service, at best.
In the NYT piece, Irwin Winkler, who produced ‘Alto Knights,’ goes on to defend his longtime friend Zaslav, and the film. Call him delusional, or Nostradamus, but Winkler somehow believes that ‘Alto Knights’ will have a long shelf life on streaming and goes on to compare its destiny to that of Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas.”
I think the film is terrific. I wish it did more box office. Over the years, I’m sure that Warners will make some money on it. We never did big theatrical business with [Goodfellas], but we certainly did in home entertainment — DVDs in those days. I think that in the long run ‘The Alto Knights’ will have the same kind of long-range audience acceptance.
Here’s the problem with Winkler’s comparison to “Goodfellas”; unlike ‘Alto Knights,’ Scorsese’s crime epic had the full backing of critics and did end up earning a decent $46M at the box-office — ‘Alto Knights’ will have no such luck.
Critics have firmly panned Levinson’s film, which earned a poor 37% on Rotten Tomatoes and a so-so “B” grade on CinemaScore. On IMDb, the score is 5.9/10.
The film, which has been in development for close to 30 years, with no studio willing to take it on, revolves around Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, two Italian-American crime bosses of the 20th century. In 1957, Genovese attempted to assassinate Costello but failed, then things got out of hand. De Niro plays both lead roles. Why? We’re not entirely sure. It comes off as a gimmick.