Bryce Dallas Howard wasn’t shocked by her box office flops “Argylle” and “The Lady in the Water.” In fact, she knew they probably wouldn’t do well in theaters. The actress told The Independent that she can anticipate whether or not a film will land with audiences. And even when those features don’t, it’s the director’s vision that failed, not hers.
“You can always see it coming while you’re making it,” Howard said of her flops. “I’ve never been shocked when something doesn’t work. But I’m just an actor – you’re there to serve a director’s vision. If a movie doesn’t turn out the way that you envisioned, you can barely feel disappointed because it’s not yours. You’re not the person who’s building the thing.”
“Argylle,” for instance, had a $200 million budget but made only $96 million at the worldwide box office. Director Matthew Vaughn was baffled by the bad reviews for the film, which no doubt didn’t help bring people to theaters. “We didn’t make ‘Citizen Kane,’ but fucking hell, then the reviews came out and I’m like, ‘Wait, what have I done to offend these people?’ They were vitriolic,” he told Empire. “I’m not saying the movie’s perfect by any means, but I didn’t think it was offensive. That took me by surprise.”
After the reviews were released, Vaughn went to theaters to witness audiences’ reactions in real time. “I even went round to cinemas because I thought, ‘Maybe I’ve lost the plot now,’” he added. “It did rattle me. I’m genuinely scratching my head about that, because you can’t ignore it. It wasn’t like [just] a few bad reviews. […] It is what it is. You learn from these things.”
Perhaps Vaughn could use some of the Howard family advice: Howard added to The Independent that when her father, Ron Howard’s 1992 romance film “Far and Away” bombed, Clint Eastwood shared some wisdom. “He [Eastwood] said, ‘Ronnie – a career is like a season of television. You’ve got 24 episodes, some of the episodes are going to be bad, some are going to be serviceable, maybe a little forgettable, and maybe five of those episodes are going to be really strong and last,’” Howard said.
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