from Drew Deitch
| Published
Jury #2 is the kind of movie audiences usually get before the blockbusters completely take over: a taut, high-concept thriller for adults that isn’t full of spectacle and bombast. Directed by the iconic Clint Eastwood, this simple yet complex story of a juror harboring a terrifying secret manages to maintain its tension and drama in less than two hours. This is the kind of movie we took for granted before Marvel changed movie theaters forever.
And that’s pretty obvious since Warner Bros. they decided to kill Jury #2 before it even had a real chance at the box office.
Warner Bros. is guilty
initially, Jury #2 would go straight to MaxWarner Bros. streaming service. Immediately, movie fans were confused that the film would not get a wide theatrical release. It has a remarkable cast, a polished production, and is from a director with a rich history in the studio. The idea that the film would miss theaters entirely was more than a little strange.
Then Warner Bros. changed their tune and decided to give Jury #2 extremely limited theatrical release in the United States. The film played in less than fifty theaters in the country and Warner Bros. they don’t count box office revenue. Fortunately, the film got an international theatrical release, but that’s rarely enough to make a serious dent in the cultural landscape these days.
now Jury #2 is headed to Max for streaming on December 20th and is tagged Max Original. Will it be able to find a bigger audience there instead of in movie theaters? We’ll never know thanks to Warner Bros., but we can report something that seems obvious: people really, really like this movie.
Juror #2 hits big, no thanks to Warner Bros.
Jury #2 released on the video-on-demand rental platform iTunes and immediately shot to number one. As of this writing, it’s still the number one movie on iTunes five days later. Audiences were clearly intrigued by the film and energized enough by it to spend their money to rent it. In an age where “I’ll wait until it’s over on my streaming service” has become the de facto position for many consumers’ approach to movies, watching a movie as Jury #2 getting such a big response from people willing to hire him says it’s worth something.
Audiences will always show up for your next blockbuster with a multi-million dollar marketing campaign behind it. Everyone is trembling with the historic success of Barbie they don’t seem to consider the billion dollar marketing budget of this movie. Movie like Jury #2 – certainly a given infinitesimal fraction of BarbieThe marketing budget of – managed to cut through the noise of any other content vying for your attention. People want to see this movie.
So, good job, Warner Bros., for shooting yourself in the foot again with a widely acclaimed adult film. I doubt dumping Jury #2 will do wonders for your maximum subscription numbers. Maybe the reason we don’t get such movies Jury #2 as often as it should, it has less to do with audiences and more to do with movie studios who don’t know what the hell they’re doing.
Look Jury #2. It’s a damn good movie that doesn’t have to struggle to find its audience.
