Robbie Williams biopic Better Man, which stars a CGI chimpanzee in the role of the British pop star, has bombed at the US box office, taking just $1 million in its opening weekend.
The film, by The Greatest Showman director Michael Gracey, was independently produced for a cost somewhere in the region of $110 million and was then acquired by Paramount for $25 million.
The film fared slightly better in the UK, making $1.9 million on its opening weekend and bringing in a total of $4.7 million to date.
David A Gross, of the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research, toldVariety that the film was likely doomed to be a bomb by its high production costs.
“Robbie Williams played by a digitally animated chimpanzee [is] an outlandish choice,” said Gross. “For anyone complaining that the industry plays it too safe, this is your movie. The risk-taking is excellent, but $110 million is not realistic for the genre and for this musical artist. $25 million to $30 million would have made more sense.”
On social media, many Americans have pointed out they simply don’t know who Williams is, despite his chart-topping popularity in the UK. Some have defended the film, with one fan writing: “I had no idea who Robbie Williams was prior to seeing Better Man, but it’s a biopic that actually feels like there was passion behind it. It deserves more attention and praise.”
While the film has so far underperformed at the box office, it has been widely praised by critics.
In a four-star review for The Independent, Clarisse Loughrey wrote: “If Superman made us believe a man can fly, then Better Man makes us believe a CGI chimp can convincingly convey the agony and ecstasy of pop star Robbie Williams. Initially, it reads as little more than a self-deprecating joke – when The Greatest Showman director Michael Gracey first spoke to Williams about putting his life up on screen, the latter remarked that he’d always seen himself as a kind of ‘performing monkey’. But it works. Not despite the gimmick, but because of it.
“Williams was, to quote the film, the ‘cheeky little bastard’ of Nineties boy band Take That, with an instinctive hunger for attention. His split from the group to become a solo act in 1996 pushed him only further into the showman role, while his rocky personal life became steady fodder for the tabloids, who liked to point and leer at a celebrity they’d deemed as nothing more than an indulgent mess. The singing of CGI chimp Williams is done by the man himself, but he’s otherwise brought to life by actor Jonno Davies via mo-cap (motion capture) magic and the talented digital effects artists at Wētā FX, who have collectively spent so much time animating primates for the recent Planet of the Apes film series that it must be second nature to them now.”