Amsterdam, the latest big-budget star-studded film from David O. Russell has flopped massively at the box office, and is looking at a reported loss of around $100 million after its opening weekend. According to Deadline, initial opening weekend projections had predicted earnings in the $15 million region, but it has failed to reach even half that. Currently, the film has made just $6.5 million domestically, while it sits at around $10 million worldwide.
The budget of the 1930s-set comedy film was a reported $80 million, double that of Russell's previous, highly successful, period-set film American Hustle, which was a huge box office smash. The film netted $251.1 million worldwide off a production budget of $40 million, while grabbing ten Academy Award nominations along the way. However, the magical spark has been missing from this latest feature.
According to the report, the massive cost of production ballooned due to a change in location from Boston to Los Angeles, and then a halt to production when the COVID pandemic stopped everything in its tracks in March 2020. The film was intended to begin shooting in 2020 but was pushed back to January 2021, with the cast unwilling to travel any further than Los Angeles. The compromise was made to stay on the West Coast, adding $30 million to the budget.
The A-list cast, however, were not to blame for any further costs. The ensemble, which includes Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, John David Washington, Rami Malek, Robert De Niro, Anya Taylor-Joy, Taylor Swift and Michael Shannon, turned up because they wanted to work with Russell. The director's conflicts with talent over the years did not deter them from joining, with some working for scale. Bale and Russell had worked on the film for five years together.
Reviews, meanwhile, were lukewarm across the board. The film currently sits at 33% from critics and 60% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, suggesting word-of-mouth is not doing the film any favors. Collider's Chase Hutchinson labeled the movie "a cinematic con that fails to convince us it's actually any good as a film or worth even a moment of time taken seriously".
The film came third on box office charts behind Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, an animated family film starring singer Shawn Mendes that placed second, and horror film Smile, which has been a surprise hit and has performed well above expectations. Check out the trailer for Amsterdam below: