Bryce Dallas Howard has been a part of some of Hollywood’s biggest franchises, be it as an actor (her three “Jurassic World” films each topped $1 billion at the worldwide box office) or director (she’s helmed several episodes of “Star Wars” series like “The Mandalorian”), but she’s also experienced some painstaking lows with box office flops like “Argylle” and “The Lady in the Water.” Not that she was surprised.
“You can always see it coming while you’re making it,” Howard recently told The Independent about her movie 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.”
The same can’t be said for the director. Howard said she has seen her father, the Oscar-winning filmmaker Ron Howard, break down emotionally when one of his films doesn’t do well, adding: “It blows him away that I don’t do that.”
When Ron’s 1992 romance “Far and Away” with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman bombed at the box office, for instance, Howard remembered her father turning to Clint Eastwood for advice on how to cope with movie failures.
“He 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.
Howard suffered one of her biggest flops last year with “Argylle,” the $200 million star-studded spy comedy from “Kingsman” filmmaker Matthew Vaughn. Howard headlined the tentpole as a spy novelist who gets pulled into a real life espionage mission. Henry Cavill, Sam Rockwell, Samuel L. Jackson, John Cena and more co-starred. Despite the talent, “Argylle” tapped out at the box office with just $96 million worldwide.
“Fuck yeah,” Vaughn responded when asked by Empire last summer if the extremely negative “Argylle” reviews were disappointing to read. “We had done test screenings that had gone fantastically well. The premiere was a really fun night, and it was like going back to the ‘Snatch’ days where there was such excitement. And I started drinking the Kool-Aid. It’s a fun, feel-good movie, or I thought it was a fun, feel-good movie. 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. I’m not saying the movie’s perfect by any means, but I didn’t think it was offensive. That took me by surprise.”
“Argylle” is available to stream on Apple TV+.
variety.com
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