All you have to do is stroll around Twitter to find a plethora of opinions about Darren Aronofsky‘s daring “mother!” While the box office receipts won’t be adding up to much, Paramount has nonetheless come out to defend their movie — particularly in the wake of its F-grade CinemaScore — and celebrate themselves for taking a break from “Transformers” and “Mission: Impossible” movies to make something original and daring.
“This movie is very audacious and brave,” Paramount worldwide president of marketing and distribution Megan Colligan said in an official statement (via Indiewire). “You are talking about a director at the top of his game, and an actress at the top her game. They made a movie that was intended to be bold. Everyone wants original filmmaking, and everyone celebrates Netflix when they tell a story no one else wants to tell. This is our version. We don’t want all movies to be safe. And it’s okay if some people don’t like it.”
Indeed, another conversation has been brewing, one that has seen cinephiles pat Paramount on the back for giving Aronofsky $30 million to make this completely batshit picture, but let’s have a bit of a reality check too. The only reason this movie got made was because it was from an A-list director, who managed to snare A-list actress Jennifer Lawrence, and who kept the budget modest. Take any of those ingredients out of the mix, and this movie doesn’t get made.
I’m also not sure it’s time to rally around a major studio for choosing to make one small fraction of their output something that isn’t based on a pre-existing brand. In case you need a reminder, here are the other movies Paramount released this year: “Monster Trucks,” “xXx: The Return Of Xander Cage,” “Rings, “Ghost In The Shell,” “Baywatch,” “Transformers: The Last Knight,” and “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.” But again, to their credit, they’re also bringing “Downsizing” and “Suburbicon” to cinemas before the year is out.
All that being said, I wouldn’t rush to put Paramount in the same breath as Netflix. Financially, “mother!” will break even at best, but it will take a while to get there. And the proof in the studio’s embrace of original filmmaking from auteurs will come with the movies they greenlight — or don’t — in the years ahead.