I’m sure A24 must have known that “Beau is Afraid” wouldn’t make that much money at the box-office. It was far from a crowd-pleaser. The reviews were mixed. There’s also no awards potential 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 wouldn’t have a ton of potential crossover success.
A hidden snippet in The Wrap’s A24 report claims that A24 lost $35 million on “Beau is Afraid.” That’s a lot of money for a small-ish indie studio like A24. ‘Beau’ is the biggest bomb in A24 history, and it’s not even close.
Remember when Aster stated that he couldn’t believe how “stupid” A24 was in greenlighting his $35 million passion project? He wasn’t kidding. It finished its theatrical run with a worldwide tally of $9.4 million.
With a $35 million dollar investment, this film needed close to $75 million to become profitable. I don’t think ‘Beau’ has seen much of a profit in the digital or physical stage unless a streaming service eventually 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’ becomes a cult classic in the years to come and continues to be seen (which might actually happen).