The quirky biopic is the first box office bomb of 2025

2025 is already off to a better start at the box office than 2024 is at this point. Year-end holdovers like Mufasa: The Lion King, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and “Nosferatu” by Robert Eggers brought big box offices. We also just had our first new hit of the year in the form Lair of Thieves 2: Panther (check out our interview with the writer/director of this film here). Unfortunately, it wasn’t a party for everyone. Namely, anyone who put a dime into the Robbie Williams biopic The Best Man could probably drink up, because that movie is now a certified, colossal flop.

For those who may not know about this film, it is a musical biopic documenting the story of pop star Robbie Williams. What’s the catch? Williams is portrayed by a CGI monkey. Despite the wild hook, the audience didn’t seem to care. The Best Man opened on nearly 1,300 screens last weekend and earned just over $1 million. It’s a disaster for Paramount Pictures, which bought domestic rights in North America, France and Japan for $25 million. Although the film is technically set for release in 2024, its fate has been sealed since its domestic release this year.

However, this is only the tip of the iceberg. The budget of the biopic, which was directed by Michael Gracie (“The Greatest Showman”), is 110 million dollars. Worse, it has already disappointed Britain, where Williams is a much bigger star. How bad is that? With just $8.8 million overseas, the film earned a total of $10 million worldwide. At the moment, there is little chance of a turnaround, and various investors will be left holding the bag — and a big bag at that.

For what it’s worth, the critics side with the film. It currently occupies 88%. Rotten tomatoes after last year’s festival. /Jacob Hall of the film saw the film at Fantastic Fest and called “Better Man” “an unclassified swing that I can’t help but admire” in his review.

The film is based on the true story of the rise, fall and resurgence of British pop superstar Robbie Williams. It’s told from Williams’ point of view, tracing his journey from childhood to becoming the youngest member of boy band Take That to top the charts, through his comeback as a solo artist, while also showing the challenges of fame. And yes, he is depicted as a CGI monkey.

It’s hard to say who will get more bruises here. Sina Studios, Facing East Entertainment, Rocket Science, Lost Bandits and Footloose Productions were all involved, with various distributors buying the rights worldwide. The only thing that’s clear is that The Best Man will recoup only a fraction of its huge budget. Now that’s a serious risk of being one of the biggest bombs of all time, no hyperbole. That doesn’t mean the movie is bad. as a large number of box office bombs are great movies to watch. However, this means that a lot of money will be lost in the short term.

As far as comparisons go, the film is in bad company. Eddie Murphy The Adventures of Pluto Nash is possibly the biggest box office bomb evergrossing a tragic $7 million against a whopping $100 million budget. As it stands, The Best Man is in a similar budget/box office rut. The biopic is largely domestically produced. Barring a significant turnaround overseas, the outlook will not improve.

So what went wrong here? First, quite a few Americans have never even heard of Robbie Williams, which makes him a tough sell. Musicals, with the exception of animated musicals, are difficult to make hits anyway, even under the best of circumstances. “Wicked” and “Wonka” are exceptions rather than rules. At the end of the day, it was a completely incomprehensible way to spend $110 million. I talked a little about it in today’s episode of the /Film Daily podcast, which you can listen to below:

The Best Man is now in theaters.