There were few films as divisive at this year’s Cannes Film Festival as Nicolas Winding Refn‘s glittery, ghoulish “The Neon Demon.” But few films survive that kind of scrutiny and leave the Croisette with just as much buzz and anticipation as it had going in. So it seemed logical that Amazon Studios and their theatrical distribution partner on this picture, Broad Green, would strike while the iron is hot and bring the movie into cinemas not long after its much-covered debut. But for whatever reason, audiences stayed away and the film flopped in its first weekend, gathering a woeful $589,014 in over 700 screens, with a per-screen-average of $752. The result was considered a big miss, but for director Alex Ross Perry (“Listen Up Philip,” “Queen Of Earth“), he thinks the system is flawed and perspective is skewed if those numbers are considered a failure.
READ MORE: The Best & The Rest: All Nicolas Winding Refn’s Films, Ranked
In a piece for The Talkhouse, Perry praised Refn’s film, calling it “a masterpiece of filmmaking craft, ambition and style,” a “pure and virile” example true arthouse cinema, and giving kudos to the filmmaker for his dedication to “continuing to work in a budget range that will allow him total freedom to execute his radically uncommercial and almost antagonistically idiosyncratic films.”
As for the box office of “The Neon Demon”? Perry questions the rollout plan for the movie, given that the film’s low $7 million budget came entirely from abroad (and was likely already recouped in pre-sales), and the actual thought process in determining how many screens the movie played on, and for how long:
…why on earth would anybody think this film needed to be on 800 screens in the first place? Perhaps the thinking here is to copy the callous dump-and-grab studio model of quickly throwing product out there before anybody can point out how little audience support it is likely to amass and then move on as quickly as possible. Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, a reasonable point of comparison, never played on more than 250 screens and, I was shocked and amazed to discover, grossed over seven million dollars while playing in theaters from October 2001 through May 2002.
And to be certain, Perry makes a strong point. While I certainly had my issues with “The Neon Demon,” I don’t regret for one moment seeing it on a massive multiplex screen (luckily, in its first week of release), with a booming sound system pumping out Cliff Martinez‘s fantastic score. The marriage of Refn’s audacious imagery and music truly deserves to be experienced with that kind of treatment. And it’s all the more reason why Perry slightly despairs at what will be the ultimate fate for “The Neon Demon” — being available on Amazon Prime.
Seeing The Neon Demon in the theater – something few people did or will have the opportunity to do again – reminded me of why I go to the movies.
….the film could not be farther away from the nondescript look and feel of practically everything on television: it is that the film exists in such furious opposition to television’s straightforward imagery and linear storytelling as to make television seem obsolete and irrelevant. It is a tragic irony to imagine The Neon Demon eventually living forever on Amazon alongside their stable of low-key, relatable sitcoms and dramas (that I have not watched). I don’t want to live in a world where a movie making a million dollars in two weeks is considered a humiliating failure, but I really don’t want to live in one where such demarcations will tarnish that film forever and prevent people from wanting to discover it later on.
Strong stuff. Read the full piece at The Talkhouse and let us know what you think of Perry’s thoughts in the comments below.