I've been going through the star/producer Billy Eichner's twitter. He recently got in hot water for saying the reason the movie failed is because of homophobia. This, of course, means his twitter replies/quote tweets etc. are filled with chuds saying shit like "Go Woke, Go Broke" among a whole host of outright homophobia (thereby proving Eichner's point).

The trailer he has pinned is not very appealing. But everything else suggests the movie is really incredible. It has an 89% critic and 91% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, a 77 on Metacritic (where the audience score is being review-bombed by chuds), and an A on CinemaScore. In addition, Vogue called it the Best Rom-com of the Year, Collider has it as one of the best in recent years and Rolling Stone has it on its list of Best Rom-Coms of the Century.

There are a bunch of other reviews too, all very positive, in The Atlantic, Out , and Entertainment Weekly and endorsements from people like Chris Evans, Edgar Wright, Mariah Carey, Jack Black, Seth Rogan, Conan O'Brien, Seth Meyers etc.

All in all, it seems like a very good movie in which Eichner and others have put in a ton of effort. The fear is that because of the failure at the Box Office, this will make the major studios even more hesitant to put forth such movies (that star LGBTQ people, BIPOC etc.) because all they care about is, of course, profit.

There's an excellent thread by fellow star and producer Guy Branum that talks about this, along with responding to the only semi-genuine left/liberal critique of the film:

In talking about how cruelly Billy Eichner, white, cis, rich... demanded the queer community support his movie, a thing that is rarely mentioned is the rest of the cast... Billy asked for his movie to not surround him with famous movie stars, but with out LGBTQ+ performers.

Because of discrimination, there aren't many LGBTQ+ actors with box office draw. In casting the romantic lead of the movie, he could have asked Chris Evans, but instead he went with a guy who came out in 2008 and got stuck making Hallmark movies for 20 years, Luke Macfarlane, and yes, Luke is white and masc and cis and hot, but... Billy knew he had to draw attention to make $, and Luke is a gifted actor who draws attention.

And for the rest of the cast, Billy and Nick worked so hard to find veterans like Guillermo Diaz, who works constantly, but rarely gets to play gay, or stage actors like Becca Blackwell, who don't get many movies because LA has no idea what to do with bearded nonbinary d*kes. He found Allison Reese who was just doing her Kamala impression online, and pulled her into the mix. He fell in love with Ts Madison through her vines and helped continue her burgeoning acting career.

Billy took a risk convincing the straight guys and corporations to cast queer people without extensive resumes or B.O. draw, like me, in this movie. So when you pat yourself on the back for resisting the tokenizing, condescending marketing for the film. Also acknowledge that Billy Eichner held the door open for a lot of other, diverse queer people, and this movie doing poorly at the box office limits the opportunities which will be in our future.

TLDR: Bros = Good. Hating Bros = Bad, Chud Behavior (even if you think you have a valid, left-liberal critique). Bros doing poorly = Bad news for all minorities in Hollywood.

  • CommieElon [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Someone said on twitter “the gays went to see the gayest movie, Hocus Pocus 2, not Bros.”

    I think the trailer was awful and rom coms are not really popular anymore. There’s been major films featuring gay stories that have been super successful. Milk, Brokeback Mountain, and Moonlight come to mind.

    • teddiursa [she/her]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      Those movies wouldn't be successful if they came out today. Only franchise movies are successful today. Dramas, comedies, and romance don't make money at the box office anymore. If you look at the top grossing movies of the 70s, there were a wide variety of genres that could be successful. The top grossing movies this year are all superhero movies, sequels, or remakes.

      • Cromalin [she/her]
        ·
        2 years ago

        i generally agree, but moonlight was 6 years ago, and the same was true then. the only non-franchise movie in the top 10 that year was secret life of pets, which became a franchise starter and was a big budget cg kids movie about talking animals

      • CommieElon [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        OP was implying Bros flopped because society is shifting toward homophobia. I would say that could be a cause but gay movies which came out 10-30 years ago were successful. It’s a huge stretch to say our society is more homophobic than when Philadelphia was released.

        But I agree franchise movies are one of the only successful movies released today.

  • Diogenes_Barrel [love/loves]
    ·
    2 years ago

    wait wait wait wait this movie had 30 million in marketing? i saw 1 (one) trailer in a fucking theater, literally not another word, anywhere.

    the producers should actually be checking if the marketing department embezzled that lmao

    • HoChiMaxh [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I would honestly have never heard about it if it wasn't for Hexbear lol

    • RedDawn [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I have only heard about it here, in this thread and one other thread. I never saw an ad or review or anything else, not even once.

      • ssjmarx [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Me neither but then I think about how I have adblockers on everything I use so maybe it's my fault I haven't seen a trailer for the film.

    • booty [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      This thread is my first time hearing about this movie lol

    • CTHlurker [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Interesting, because I keep getting bombarded with adds for that particular movie. Almost no other movie-trailers get to me, so maybe I'm tagged as someone who would enjoy a gay rom-com? Genuinely wondering why I kept getting adds for it, because it looked like every bad romcom that Ryan Reynolds was doing in the early 2000s/late 90s, and I had fuckall interest in seeing those movies.

      • Diogenes_Barrel [love/loves]
        ·
        2 years ago

        spent 30 million on extremely targeted ads ig,

        well did it work? did the individual bombarded by ads for a movie an algorithm decided you'd like go watch it?

        this might be a potent example of relying on modern algorithmic(automated) adverts resulting in disaster :brow: it'll be interesting if anyone takes a critical look into it tbh

        • CTHlurker [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          I did not in fact go watch the movie that i was bombarded with ads for. It's sort of a point of pride to not watch these things if they try to compel me.

          • Diogenes_Barrel [love/loves]
            ·
            2 years ago

            same, ads def put me off of any product lol. the real story is that the people fingered by the algorithm as lgbt are too cool to see or acknowledge adverts :screm-cool:

            • CTHlurker [he/him]
              ·
              2 years ago

              Thtas the weirdest part. I'm a cisgendered straight man, who is married to a cisgendered straight woman, and have a todler. Like, I'm pretty damn sure that I'm not LGBT, and I'd like to know how I came to be marked as "possibly lgbt" in their algorithm, because that seems like a dangerous amount of power for them to have in their profiling toolkit.

      • keepcarrot [she/her]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I feel like you should pirate and watch it. See if the algorithm has you pegged.

  • usa_suxxx [they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I didn't even know about this movie until last week. I saw some gay friends share the poster but really didn't hear anyone mention it was a romcom until a couple days after. I would probably have gone to watch it in the theaters if COVID weren't a thing. Good romcoms don't happen anymore.

  • Frogmanfromlake [none/use name]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    On a side note, what caused Brokeback Mountain to do well? It stood out back then as a succsessful gay movie and I haven't seen an lgbt movie do as well since then. Unless I'm out of the loop and there are others that achieved the same level of mainstream popularity and financial success.

    • Cromalin [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      it was part of the last gasp of dramas pulling in big numbers at the box office, and it had controversy driving those ticket sales. people talking about how it was a gay movie meant everyone knew it was a movie in theaters, and you'd need to see it if you wanted to talk about it

  • Sea_Gull [they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I wanted this movie to do better and I'm sad that it isn't. I would love to be able to see gay men in rom coms, especially because it felt like an in. Aside from art house films that get lucky, queer cinema is severely limited and/or bland.

    I fear that the movie is a pretty accurate barometer of where politics are going. That is, if you decided not to look outside your window.

    • ChestRockwell [comrade/them, any]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      Not gay, so take my queer cinema with the requisite grains of salt but if you're willing to include subtitles Almodovar is an amazing queer filmmaker. His films are meaty and have the movie mindset, often good mixes of comedy and tragedy. La Mala Education (Bad Education) is a great noir, and I'm So Excited is a really fun comedy-ish movie (not nearly as deep as some of his other stuff tho).

      If nothing else though, Almodovar doesn't sanitize his queer characters. They're always sexual and alive in a way that really just makes the movie work.

  • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]
    ·
    2 years ago

    if this film is already part of the National Conversation then i'm not sure if i trust any source to tell me whether it's good other than my own eyes or a few Tumblr weirdos

  • macabrett
    ·
    2 years ago

    I want to see it, I just can't in theaters because of covid.

    I'm sad comedies don't do well anymore.

  • kristina [she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    right now its pretty acceptable to have nontragic lesbian leads but it seems like its still rough for the gay guys

    • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I'm always gonna wonder if they evaporated batwoman because it had a lesbian lead.

  • Thylacine [any]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Idk I've only seen him on Parks and Rec and thought he was hella annoying. He's not a huge draw for me, and I really don't care about seeing a comedy in the theaters. I saw promoted stuff on twitter about it and thought it was like I Love You, Man or whatever that slappin da bass movie was

    • PsychedelicPill [he/him,any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      It’s produced by Judd Apatow just like I Love You, Man. That’s probably why it has that vibe.

      • Thylacine [any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I sort of loathe him yet I do like that movie lmao, but I thought it was like a 15-years-later knock off instead a new gay rom-com by him

  • fox [comrade/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I wasn't aware this was a thing, I wouldn't have seen it because nobody masks in theaters any more, and I also really dislike Eichner's whole schtick. Is he a great romcom actor? I don't know and I don't care.

  • hollowmines [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Haven't seen the movie but this seems like a solid counter-take: "Let gay art bomb."

    https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2022-10-05/bros-billy-eichner-box-office-lgbtq-representation