Culture ‘Bros’ Star Billy Eichner Reacts to ‘Disappointing’ Box Office Opening: ‘Straight People Just Didn’t Show Up’ - Maybe it's just a shit movie Billy?

Billy Eichner has shared his thoughts regarding the meager box office opening for his LGBTQ romantic comedy “Bros,” writing that “straight people, especially in certain parts of the country, just didn’t show up.”

In a thread posted to his official Twitter, Eichner, who wrote, produced and stars in “Bros,” asserted that he is “very proud” of the movie, describing his experience covertly watching a sold out screening in Los Angeles during the weekend.

“Last night I snuck in and sat in the back of a sold out theater playing ‘Bros’ in LA. The audience howled with laughter start to finish, burst into applause at the end and some were wiping away tears as they walked out,” Eichner wrote. “It was truly magical. Really. I am VERY proud of this movie.”



The star also divulged that a theater chain had mounted plans to pull the trailer for “Bros” from its programming due to “gay content,” but Universal eventually convinced the company to maintain its placement in the pre-show rotation. “America, fuck yeah,” Eichner wrote.

“That’s just the world we live in, unfortunately,” Eichner continued. “Even with glowing reviews, great Rotten Tomatoes scores, an A CinemaScore, etc., straight people, especially in certain parts of the country, just didn’t show up for Bros. And that’s disappointing but it is what it is.”

Eichner concluded his thoughts by encouraging “everyone who isn’t a homophobic weirdo” to see “Bros,” writing that it remains “special and uniquely powerful to see this particular story on a big screen.”

“Bros” is the first gay rom-com to be given a wide theatrical release by a major studio, as well as the first with an all-openly LGBTQ cast.

The film fizzled at the box office this weekend, opening in fourth place with a slim $4.8 million gross from 3,350 locations. Though “Bros” carries a modest $22 million production budget, it will likely struggle to achieve profitability, considering its disappointing debut.

Even so, “Bros” has earned glowing approval from critics and audience polling remains strong. Universal will hope that word-of-mouth provides some staying power for the film in the coming weeks.

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/bros-box-office-disappointing-billy-eichner-reacts-1235390904/ (Archive)

 

[anustart76]

It reminds me of how every Disney movie with a gay character becomes "the first Disney movie with a gay character" lately.

"And if you don't, you're a bigot. You're inherently a bigot for being straight, but at least by watching bros you can repent a little bit."

"This movie wasn't made for men/straight people/white people, they're all bigots"
"This movie failed because men/straight people/white people refused to see this movie because they're bigots"

 

[Ita Mori]

Oh c'mon you aren't even trying to make it believable... are you really that far up your own ass you think anyone would believe this?

 

[SlaanyChaser]

Hey @SlaanyChaser since you admitted to wanting to see it and we would like to hear it from a Kiwi, how full was the theater you went to?

I ended up not having time.

But I'm going to go this Thursday and can report then. I will say that when I looked up theatre showtimes there weren't any for after this workweek lol.

 

[ZazietheBeast]

The simple fact of the matter is, people are naturally repulsed by homosexuality precisely because they're an error in nature. Going homo is quite literally how you don't breed. People like breeding.

Not helping is how homos are quite literally plaguespreaders in general due to their penchant for debauchery. And the aformentioned debauchery to the point they cripple themselves. (Being incontinent thanks to constant sodomy causes way more problems than people give it credit for) And when you have society trying to preach a clear ill as a good, of course people want no part of it.

TL;DR: Movie simply isn't for me. Not into gay men.

 

[Ita Mori]

Don't worry, I'm sure overseas box office sales will bring turn this movie into a top-grossing mega hit and show this racist bigoted country just how progressive and accepting the rest of the world is.

 

[Picnic_Boy]

Romcoms are usually date movies. Straight men simply endure them. You'd have to be maximum fujo to suggest seeing this with your boyfriend.

 

[borsabil]

Romcoms are usually date movies. Straight men simply endure them. You'd have to be maximum fujo to suggest seeing this with your boyfriend.

Fujo's ship attractive characters, which is this movie's biggest flaw.

It's target audience are faggots and women who finger bang themselves imagining 2 dudes fucking.

Casting a lead who got hit with an ugly stick at birth was not a good call. He's unfortunately very Jewish looking.

If you want to see brutal takedowns witness one faggot describing another faggot who's a bit on the fugly side. Homos are motivated only by sex, physical appearance isn't one of the things that they go for it's the only thing. Expecting them to show up to watch a movie that depicts an ugly Jew 'fall in love' is delusional.

 

[Iron Jaguar]

I remember when they added him to Parks & Rec and his character was just "annoying screaming faggot"
ie just him with a fake name

It was pathetic. I called it Parks and Rectum and got a 30 day ban on Facebook.

The whole thing is a propaganda mill for people who want you to worship niggers and fags.

This is a profound truth, on both a temporal and spiritual level.

Straight guys are the gayest people ever. Think of college frat guys and all the gay shit they do.

Well, that must make the Marine Corps the queerest institution in America.
But remember, just because you did it once or twice doesn't mean you're gay. Heck, one could try it several dozen times, like you clearly have, before making up your mind.

 

[kidatari]

The Birdcage that came out in 1996 and according to Wikipedia made $185.3 million dollars
Brokeback Mountain that came out in 2005 and according to Wikipedia made $178.1 million dollars
Both films plot is about homosexuality and both films are great and did well in the box office

And examples like this is why shitlib celebs are such morons and hacks or just bigots
Shitleb celebs never acknowledge others works that did well but only failures to push their bullshit leftist narative.

Bro's film did not do well; It must be the evil straight men and straight men who don't watch Bro's, hate gays and are homophobic
It's all so damn tiring

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

If it wasn't him and was say, Lee Pace (Lee is iconic and handsome and even straight men agree also watch the 2006 film The Fall), and not produced by Judd Apatow nor touted as "omfg first mainstream gay rom com!!!1111" and released around Valentines Day, it would be a decent film. Maybe a sleeper hit. The marketing damaged it beyond repair.

Also you can do a gay rom-com and not be stereotypical. But no we need performative wokeness.

I found something funny actually

https://twitter.com/Itsjoeco/status/1576752534353387521?t=rhK_3qB7-SYascFHGwMXQQ&s=19

 

[Tasty Tatty]

Maybe it is a good movie, but I wouldn't know because I am just finding out it exists. Looks like a marketing failure rather than anything else, yet I'm blamed for not watching it because of who I'm sleeping with, lol.

Also, this excuse is bullshit.

1996: The Birdcage: US$185,260,553 worldwide (top 1 for 3 weeks)
1995: To Wong Foo: US$47.8 million worldwide (top 1 for 2 weeks)

Maybe make fun movies.

 

[Product Placement]

Comedies and that includes Rom Coms are just doing worse at the box office as whole. So you have a rom com, with a cast of unknowns, who's whole marketing campaign is base about it being gay rather than story or characters and a budget that was too high.

Movies like Marry Me which stared Jennifer Lopez only grossed $22.5 million in the US. Also worth noting the bundle for Marry Me was only $1 million more than Bros

If they wanted this movie to do well, the budget should have been under $10 millions if not under $5 million, and marketing shouldn't have been based on sexuality but rather the story.comedy and characters .

Mean gays movies have done well, Birdcage from the 90s did over $180 million, Rockman a few years ago did nearly $200 million and you have even more hits, however if you look at all those hits you see that they had more to them than just being gay.

 

[Tor Lugosi]

RomComs audience is typically female and even they don't like watching gay dudes (I had a female friend once who commented she'd rather watch guys wrestle or do construction work than kiss or have sex). I really doubt this was ever going to be successful.

also, bill eichner plays the same loud, obnoxious gay dude in everything he does and is always cited as the worst part of whatever project he's in

 

[Atatata]

Sounds like he didn't even target the faghag audience, there's a bunch of women who'd love this shit. You made a shitty movie, gayboy, don't whine that no one wants to see it.

Yeah, looking at foreign stuff, there's definitely a market for this sort of stuff.

Even the Chinese have several successful homosexual series out, only difference is that its more than just two gay guys being gay.

Powerlevel, but I got no problem watching that sort of stuff if the story is good, but the immediate lgbt+ organization stuffing in the trailer made it seem obnoxious and trying to pander to progressives rather than genuinely just wanting a gay romcom.

 

[TowinKarz]

“Last night I snuck in and sat in the back of a sold out theater playing ‘Bros’ in LA. The audience howled with laughter start to finish, burst into applause at the end and some were wiping away tears as they walked out,” Eichner wrote. “It was truly magical. Really. I am VERY proud of this movie.”

Cope lmao

Should someone tell him that was a dream? Or just let him have his moment?

 

[Stab You in the Back]

I bet Billy had major points in this film, which is why he was hoping for My Big Fat Greek Wedding or Crazy Annoying Asians returns. The problem is that while Greek-Americans and ghetto-ified Asian-Americans don't have literally thousands of movies and tv shows dedicated to them, gays do. Gays are so overrepresented in our media, its impossible to turn on a television without being assault by their presence. That means there is no novelty to releasing a gay movie in 2022. None. So if you want people to show up, it needs to be pretty fucking great. And Bros is just... average.

Also, fucking lol at Billy being so sheltered and Hollywood-focused that he's citing the Rotten Tomatoes review score as a reason why people should see his film. Dude, everybody knows RT is astroturfed to hell by studio bots. And everybody knows there is a separate scale for "representation films" than for real movies. The higher a score a black or a gay or a whatever movie gets, the more likely it is to be absolute garbage.

 

[Watcher]

The idea that this film failed due to "straight people" is ludicrous in terms of excuse making. As people have pointed out there are countless examples of films that centered on atypical relationships that performed very well at the box office. (One that immediately comes to mind is The Crying Game which is about a person getting catfished by a transgender person).

All of the films I can think of that did though were more interesting in terms of premise and casting. Like Brokeback Mountain got a solid box office largely because people wanted to see Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal and thought the premise was funny. Bros meanwhile was marketed solely as queer bait to try and get activists to watch it and was not made for a general audience. And it's of little surprise the general audience wasn't interested.

Blaming the audience for why your work failed is frustratingly common nowadays. Like it also happened with the Woman King where someone involved with it stated if the film failed it was due to the audience rejecting a black woman as the star of the film.

 

[SBG]

What usually kills any gay movie is the people behind it being so vain they feature only guys they find hot (who can’t act) and only lavish praise upon their self insert characters.

This movie is plagued by that vanity and is a modern comedy which means it’s unfunny shit.

 

[The Taco Santo!]

Eichner wrote. “It was truly magical. Really."

You can just tell that he's hearing disbelieving laughter inside his head as he writes this.

 

[Lorne Armstrong]

Just wait to he realize straight people dont enjoy watching Gay Porn eather...

I know I don’t! My stepdad forcing me to watch gay porn with him is one of reasons I’m a homophobe today!