What can Hollywood Learn From Kevin Spacey-Led Billionaire Boys Club’s $618 Opening Weekend?

$618. Six hundred and eighteen dollars. Yes, you read that right. There are no zeroes missing from that figure.

Billionaire Boys Club, one of the last films that Kevin Spacey worked on before allegations of sexual abuse came out against the actor last year, quietly opened in select theatres this past weekend after a direct-to-video release last month. Even considering how few theatres are actually running the film—just ten theatres across the United States, some with just a single screening per day—the abysmal box office figures are still astounding. A $618 opening weekend, at an average of about 10 USD per ticket, means just 60 people watched this movie in the entire country on its opening weekend. (Its budget, by the way, was $15 million.)

Does this mean viewers made a conscious decision not to support the film? Film distributor Vertical Entertainment had its fingers crossed that “one person’s behaviour” wouldn’t affect its performance, saying in a statement earlier this summer that it would go ahead and release the film on VOD and in cinemas.

“We hope these distressing allegations pertaining to one person’s behaviour — that were not publicly known when the film was made almost two-and-a-half years ago and from someone who has a small, supporting role in Billionaire Boys Club — does not tarnish the release of the film,” reads the statement. “In the end, we hope audiences make up their own minds as to the reprehensible allegations of one person’s past, but not at the expense of the entire cast and crew present on this film.”

We’re countless separating-art-from-the-artist debates into this new #MeToo era, and viewers seem to have decided what side of that argument they want to be on. Of course, it’s a blow to the cast (the film also stars Taron Egerton, Ansel Elgort and Emma Roberts), crew and production company, all of which came together on this project back in 2015, long before Spacey’s problematic history was public knowledge. But in the long run, viewers abstaining from this film sends a clear message to the big shots over in Hollywood who, at this very moment, might be considering casting someone with a similarly sordid history. The box office fallout seen over the weekend might give them pause, even when their moral compasses may not. That, right there, is a small victory. Audiences are voting with their wallets, and you can bet Hollywood is starting to listen.

So, sorry, Billionaire Boys Club. You’re just gonna have to take one for the team.

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