By After big success for them with “Hereditary” and “Midsommar,” indie distributor A24 forked over a significant $35 million to allow filmmaker Ari Aster to shoot his third feature “Beau Is Afraid”.
Whether it be the polarizing nature of the film, the three-hour runtime, or the marketing which just seemed to focus on a wizened Joaquin Phoenix and not explain much else, the audience stayed away in droves.
Ultimately the film only grossed around $11 million worldwide along with being one of the more divisively reviewed titles this year.
In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Aster discussed that disappointing response saying he’s saddened by the result:
“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.
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?’
The film is an experiment in so many ways. Even what he finds up in that attic is a very specific provocation. I’m deliberately blowing up the whole film. People talked about it as a letdown when clearly – yeah, that’s the joke! Interpret this, right?”
Aster also says it used to be a film like this came out and, in its division of the audience, it stirs people to go to the theater to check it out for themselves. Instead, the response has been something that would ultimately push people away from giving it a shot.
Phoenix stars in the film as an anxiety-riddled loner who sets off on a bizarre odyssey home to see his mother (Patti Lupone). It is now available on digital platforms.
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